


The Magpie

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-01 00:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 73,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15131195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Some time after the Infinity War was won, a young man with no memories finds himself caught between his life as a newsy and his past.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> × written for a friend  
> × i have seen both the 1992 movie and the musical of the newsies but i am no expert on the fandom and what i know is all largely due to the friend who will receive this  
> × there are so many newsies i couldn't fit them all in  
> × original characters used where appropriate  
> × blanket warning for out-of-character portrayals  
> × and shameless use of movie and comic lines  
> × uses canon facts and inspiration from both mcu and marvel comics  
> × otherwise i'm just making things up as i go along  
> × updates every other day

The tension in the room was so thick, that if he had a butter knife, he would have been able to slice through it—like melted butter, as it were. But all he had in its stead was a nail clipper, which used to belong to someone else but there were like 20, 30, 40 of them in that vast, gothic mansion, he shouldn’t be expected to remember them all. After all, everyone knew that remembering was not his strongest talent. 

Too bad it was an alibi that had since lost its effectivity—like some damn training pants, a trial period that had run out. Whatever. If he didn’t have an excuse, then he wouldn’t have any. No excuses, he would die like men. 

Those old heavy doors slammed shut with an echo. The room stirred, heads turning, bodies shifting in their otherwise comfortable poses. Others stood up suddenly from wherever they were slouching to grab a bite, take a leak. Weak—they couldn’t stand the suspense. He smirked, buffing his nails. 

Two sets of footsteps came up then, echoing louder as they crossed the empty lobby, both urgent but in varying capacities. They stopped as soon as they reached the sitting room practically bursting with both the pretentious and the curious. He laid across the long couch at the farthest end of the narrowish room, directly in line with the open doors. He ignored them. 

“I’ve just been to the hospital,” one of them announced when no one dared to speak. “Delancey’s fine. Apart from some shattered ribs and a dislocated shoulder, he’ll be fine.” Assurances that were almost lost to the shock and urgent mumbles bubbling from the room, eyes whirling, glancing surreptitiously to the man on the couch. He pursed his lips—so the guy was going to live, after all. No big deal, then. “Now,” their great leader went on, crossing his arms. “I want to know what happened.” Silence again. “Straight from you.” He thought it was rather sweet of him to uphold some form of democracy even though everyone knew he was just going through the motions now. He blew at his nails and inspected them—round and short, just the way they liked it. 

“It was him!” the boy on the floor near him with his video game suddenly piped up just as he had been expecting it. This sweet innocent little summer child. “Magpie did it.” 

“Oh come on,” he groaned overdramatically, rolling his eyes as he turned to the boy pointing his finger in accusation to his direction. “I just saved your life and this is the thanks I get?” 

“Delancey threatened you?” gaped the second-in-command, the one standing next to their great leader covering his eyes. 

“He didn’t,” the boy said, squaring his shoulders to meet all the attention being poured into him. “I mean, he kinda did. But it wasn’t a threat because he really did it. Anyway, see: Magpie and I were just taking a break, sitting in the parking lot when the Delanceys came over and said they were going to take me back home. That I shouldn't be hanging around with disreputable fellows like Magpie. So they grabbed me by the arm and Magpie stepped up to stop them. Then Oscar punched him in the face!”

Everyone swung to meet him, then, to see if this was true. Magpie shrugged. They couldn’t know, though. There was no way of knowing—the strike hadn’t left a mark on his cheek although it had stung a bit. But not as much as his pride did. 

“That was when Magpie picked him up in a choke hold,” the boy went on, demonstrating it, “and threw him to the wall!!” 

“Thereby rescuing Little Lessie from the vile clutches of the Delancey Brothers,” Magpie concluded, meeting the gaping face of their deputy leader as he dipped his head in some form of a bow. “You’re welcome.”

“Oscar? Really?” sputtered one of the faces staring, unlit cigarette stick falling off his round mouth. “But he’s big!” 

“Trust me, Higgins. He wasn’t _that_ big.” He winked at the man who was suddenly burning. 

“All right, that’s enough,” their great leader barked. Frowning and crossing his arms, he said to Magpie, “You’re really never going to apologize, are you?” 

Now it was Magpie’s turn to gape, looking appalled at his leader’s inquiry. “I just did you boys a favor. Jacobs here,” he gestured to the man next to him, “had asked me to look after his baby brother while you two shared a little,” he scratched the air with his freshly clipped fingernails, “tête-à-tête. Now,” he pressed his hand to his chest, “I may not know much, but I do know how it feels when two people need privacy!” 

“Now, Magpie,” Jacobs reached for him, “that’s not how it is…”

“And who am I to deny you this privacy in an otherwise overcrowded charity home when you’ve given me so much!” For which he winked at a young woman in the room by way of an explanation. She transformed right then and there into a tomato. 

“So here I am,” Magpie continued, “the savior of Les Jacobs, hoping for some peace and quiet to rest and recover from the beating that I sustained, and I get reprimanded for playing the Avenger card.” He straightened up then, putting his booted feet to the carpeted floor, knees apart, and his shoulders to the couch’s back. “Why am I not surprised?” He smirked at his dear leader. 

He met Magpie stare for stare. He snarled, “I swear if it weren’t for…” under his breath but he stopped, as he always did, before a name could be produced. 

Magpie only smiled brightly at him, as if to say, _Who? Oh, do please go on!_

“All right,” he said, snapping out of his thoughts. He looked around the room. “New rule: Magpie doesn’t leave this house without a sitter. Racetrack, you’re first.” Magpie threw his hands up. 

“What?” Higgins spat, staring widely at their leader. “But Jack, I—” 

“What’s new?” Magpie beckoned to the polished ceiling. 

“No buts, Race, you know what’s at stake here,” Jack went on. “Les, you’re back to rounds with Davey.”

“What?!” the little boy protested. 

“And that’s what you get for being a little magpie! Good job, child,” Magpie said, reaching over to muss up his hair before he rose from his seat. “Glad you didn’t tell them about the hotdog you stole, though. You may have a future yet!” 

“What?” he screeched just as his brother sang out a warning, “Les?!” “I swear I didn’t! It was Magpie!!”

Magpie stretched out his arms to present himself as he swayed past the rest of the room, watching him like a captive audience. “Famously so. What else is new? No need to walk me to the boys’ room, Racer.” He stopped by the doorway, one hand on the frame to look over his shoulder and give the younger man a sly smile. “Unless you wanna go for a ride.”

“Magpie,” Jack said, grabbing him by his forearm so he could look. “Please,” he asked him. 

Magpie smiled at him, as well, and patted his cheek with a gloved hand. “Anything for you, Kelly.” He glanced at Davey Jacobs briefly. The poor man’s face was ridden with anxiety. 

Then he left, finally. 

“And for the last time, Magpie, put that knife away from your belt!” 

Now that was simply unacceptable. Magpie responded appropriately with a stunning middle finger.


	2. Chapter 2

He came in a bright red jacket, a dark blue shirt with no design, a pair of well-loved jeans and some sensible running shoes. Jack Kelly was instantly upon him, of course, as he must be. With one hand on the strap of his gym bag, he shook Kelly’s proffered one. 

“Morning, Magpie!” came the cheery greeting from down the hall, followed by the echo of the door. If there was anything this old house was good at, it was literally accentuating every little sound it heard. Racetrack’s footsteps came approaching soon after. “Ready to sell papes?” 

“Who’s that?” Magpie asked instead. 

Racetrack stopped beside Magpie—bent over, elbows atop the barrier—to look down from the intricate railing of the upper floor. “Huh,” he said, watching Jack Kelly lead the newcomer into the house, disappearing from view. “Well, this is a surprise. That was Wiccan.”

“Wiccan?” Magpie turned to Racetrack pulling out his Starkphone from his back pocket. 

“Yeah, from Brooklyn,” he went on, even as he tapped out a message on his mobile phone, the keypad tones clucking snappily. “His real name’s Billy Kaplan but you know how it is here.” 

Magpie did. Since many of their members were minors and many with identities best kept under wraps, everyone was required to go around under aliases. All of them, just to protect those who were most in need of it. It was a decision that came down from the senior members from all chapters who were largely inspired by the Newsboys’ Strike of 1899 and its fictional counterparts, going so far as to adapt the association’s name for their own. That was also why they were still going around, selling newspapers in the day and age of fast internet and social media. It was the perfect cover, after all—they were a charity house, they needed to generate funds to feed and cloth themselves. 

It was, also, the perfect front to hide an underground network comprised mostly of orphans looking out for each other. Spreading hidden messages, keeping everyone in the loop for the next alien invasion, the next technological mishap. Making sure no one went missing anymore, or perhaps lost a family or a friend. As they all had. 

As, perhaps, even Magpie had, but he had no way of knowing. He didn’t even know if he had any other name besides “Magpie”. 

Racetrack’s mobile phone beeped. “An exchange newsy,” he shared to Magpie, firing out a quick reply before he slipped his device back in his pocket. “Looks like he’ll be with us for a while. Guess we all know what that means.” He turned to Magpie with a knowing smile. 

Magpie responded with a sideways grin. “I’ll bring the bad decisions.”

“I’ll bring the booze,” Racetrack replied, sharing with him a high five, a low five, and then a fist bump. “Ready to go, then?” 

Magpie rose, brushing back the train of his army green short coat to reveal the darker shirt within, the double belt criss-crossed around his tight black pants and the sheathed knife at the side. “Daddy,” he said, posing for a magazine, “I’m all yours.”

* * *

Tony Stark donates 10 million worth of power generators to aide with Puerto Rico recovery. 

Seven missing trekkers found alive and well in a Denny’s Diner. Aliens suspected. 

Miss Universe may be welcoming Miss Wakanda to beauty pageant next year. 

Not exactly the most urgent headlines in the news right now but they, at least, sold the papers. If one half of the Delancey Brothers wasn’t quivering in his breeches yet, Magpie thought he might pop up like some uninvited genie to dish out a lesson on how to properly sell papes. As if there was still a proper way to make money these days. 

He’d just finished reading about the missing trekkers when Racetrack had returned to their bench from the nearby mini mart, bearing a heavy bag full of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and another with his preferred soda. Magpie grinned at his loot, reaching for the candies. “My thanks, dear friend!” 

“Sometimes, you have a funny way of talking, you know that?” Racetrack peeled off his beret to right it over his flattened hair again. “Anyway, what’s with the sugar rush?”

“This isn’t for me,” Magpie revealed, counting the packs within the bag before he crushed the opening shut and flew up to his feet. The last few pieces of their newspapers, he left for Racetrack to carry as he lifted his arms in some messianic T-pose. “Listen. I truly am very sorry that I cockblocked you and Spotty, I knew you had a date today. Might I make it up to you by letting you in on a secret?” He smiled hopefully. 

Racetrack stood a little bit bewildered but found no reason to reject the invitation. They stepped back out into the busy road, selling off the last of their papers at a pittance just to be rid of them, and wove their way in and out of buildings until they had stitched themselves deep into a maze of alleys and streets and similar passageways. 

“Do you still know how to get out?” Racetrack asked, looking up over the foreign walls with some worry. 

“Don’t worry, Kelly has me on his tracker 24/7.” An open secret between Magpie, Kelly and Jacobs the Older—which was to say that Magpie wasn’t supposed to know but unfortunately for Kelly and Jacobs, he was a giant sneak. “Not much farther now!” 

Their quest ended at an abandoned gas station, just one of the many effects of the recent attack on New York. The convenience store nearby had since been emptied out of anything worth anything—food, drinks, batteries, condoms, chairs, racks—and the pumping machines didn’t fare much better either. Truly nothing was spared and could be spared when times were tough and scary. 

The confusion in Racetrack’s face, then, as he wandered around the useless place while Magpie opened a pack of Reese’s, was well-founded. “So what else is left in here?” 

“Don’t speak too loudly,” Magpie warned him too late, coming up casually beside him when the first sign of life—a skittering set of limbs upon the concrete—finally announced its presence. “He doesn’t really like visitors.”

The sharp yapping of a sudden canine practically ripped the silence apart. Racetrack wailed, voice tight with surprise while he stumbled away from the black mass tearing through the vacant lot, growling and snapping as it went. 

If Magpie hadn’t stepped forward, covering the crying Racetrack, it was anyone’s guess what might have happened. “Thori!” he barked, voice high and sharp in the air. 

Thori the rabid dog scampered to a stop then but only so it could park itself and threaten its visitors with even fiercer barks. The whole chorus ended abruptly when Magpie raised the open packet. The pup seemed to shudder in recognition, only to growl and bark again, as if in offense. 

“Good boy, Thori. You want this?” Magpie revealed a peanut butter cup. “It’s yours.” He tossed the treat to the little dog. Thori jumped to snatch it off the air and proceeded to mangle it, as if it was a quadrupedal prey and he was trying to snap its head off with the force of his shaking head. 

Racetrack finally got over his shock, breathing hard while he watched Thori lick the ground for the crumbs. He barked again, furious that the sweet thing was gone. Magpie tossed him another. “Is…is that safe?”

“Yes, of course,” Magpie assured him, walking over to an overturned pumping machine to sit down. He was opening another packet. Racetrack joined him. “Peanut butter is great for dogs.”

“Okay, but the thing is covered in chocolate.”

Magpie pitched the next piece farther, sending the dog in a frenzied chase for it. “Thori’s been through worse, he’ll survive this.”

The thing landed close to the fallen signage, not within easy reach. Thori scowled and yapped at Magpie for the poor throw before he proceeded to wrestle it free, stubby tail quivering with the effort. 

“He hasn’t got much long to live, anyway,” Magpie continued, emptying the packet, ready to throw the next piece whenever Thori was done with his hunt. “Might as well let him have the good stuff.” His response was the flick of a lighter. Magpie turned to the familiar fragrance. 

Racetrack lit the cigarette stick between his lips, took the first drag, then relinquished it to Magpie who he knew enjoyed the second one best. “Yes!” he hissed in triumph and gratitude, accepting the gift. “That’s the stuff.”

His companion lit another stick. They puffed in peace for a few moments while they watched the dog drag the chocolate out in the open where he could devour it. “How’d you find him, anyway?” he asked. 

Magpie looked up from the orange packets on his lap while he redid the canary yellow bandana he fancied over his head. If there was anything he learned from the newsies, it was that identity was important; he needed a trait that stood out. Jack Kelly fancied his red neckerchief and cowboy vest, Racetrack was an unapologetic smoker and gambler. The yellow bandana was his, along with the fur-lined coat, the black fingerless gloves and the collection of knives he carried about with him. 

“In one of my rounds, as one does,” he answered, taking the cigarette stick from his lips to blow out the smoke. “No one wants the dog. No one will take him,” he went on, taking another drag. He heard one of Racetrack’s soda cans crack and fizzle open. “They left him here, after they stole his brothers and sisters. They should have taken him, but he is battered and scarred. And angry and ugly and ruthless. A mongrel without any saving grace. A lost cause. He only survived because I came to save him. If I hadn’t heard him crying, they would have beaten him to death.”

“What!” Racetrack gasped, whirling at Magpie with a startled look. 

Magpie pulled from his stick. He blew. “What would you do if a dog you didn’t want was trying to hurt you? He’s just a mongrel, no more important than you.” When Thori came scrambling back for his rightful treat, he tossed the fourth piece to the dog, keeping the trajectory low and close. He opened another one. “Thori wouldn’t even let me touch him, much less near him. I could only leave him with a blanket, some food and some water. And hope for the best.” He grinned. “As one does.”

“So you couldn’t bring him to the vet either.”

Magpie shook his head. “He’s abandoned now. For good, for better or for worse. He belongs nowhere, to no one…” He smirked at Racetrack. “Perhaps I feel a kind of kinship towards the poor animal.”

Racetrack frowned at the idea of it. He sighed, reaching over to clap Magpie on the knee. “Magpie,” he said, then paused for a long minute. “I’m sorry you still feel that way,” he said eventually, putting on a little smile for his friend. “But I guess that’s just something we all have to deal with. All of us…‘cause I guess that’s our thing, huh? At one point of our lives, we’ve all been displaced. Permanently. So now we’re just hanging onto each other, trying to make a place for ourselves. Where we can feel like we belong.” 

For his words, Magpie offered his own smile. 

“We may not be your real family,” Racetrack went on, gripping him firmly, reassuringly, “and we may not be able to help you find them…but we _are_ your family, Magpie. You’re one of us. You’re safe with us.” That was what he said, and Magpie knew he was right. That was as far as it went, though, because knowing was different from believing. 

The truth of it, of course, was that Magpie never, for once, felt that he belonged with them, no matter that he felt welcomed. He couldn’t even remember any history he had with them. The earliest memory he carried was waking up in the hospital with no recollection of what happened to him, or who he was. But he had a guardian who visited him daily, and she was the one who brought him to the Manhattan Chapter of the Newsies where he was welcomed with great cheer, a wide banner and lots of balloons and poppers. “Great to have you back, kid,” Jack Kelly had said to him as he embraced him, clapping his shoulder. “Everyone missed you!” 

“Thank you, Racetrack,” Magpie said, patting him fondly on his hand. For all that he teased Racetrack, he liked the man. He had always been kind and generous to him, a friend ever since he had returned to the mansion. And he liked kind men. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.”

“You didn’t,” he assured him, shaking his head. “We all just have those moments. Even I get jealous of Davey and Les sometimes. Must be nice to have blood in the troupe.”

“Oh, to have a sibling,” Magpie echoed, smiling wanly as he returned to Thori searching for the Reese’s he’d just tossed out. “I should like to have a brother,” he shared soon after. “A big brother. An older one who will protect me whenever I have need of it.”

“We should probably go home, you’re starting to talk weird again.”

Magpie swatted him playfully on his leg. His phone rang. He slipped it out from the inside of his short coat and brought up the notification. “Huh,” he said. “Yeah, we ought to go.” He turned the screen to Racetrack who peered closely at the picture and the text. _Welcome, Wiccan!_ read the caption under a picture of the young man smiling shyly with a peace sign held up for the camera. The details of the party were printed just further down, with a button where he could confirm his attendance. “He looks like an anime, doesn’t he?” 

Racetrack cackled. “Tell Crutchie we’ll get the drinks.”

Magpie did, tapping out the message and then the button to accept the invitation. He slid it back in his pocket, killed his cigarette and started tearing open the rest of the Reese’s packets he had left. “Is Brooklyn coming?” 

“Of course they are.” Racetrack grinned at Magpie who was throwing out the chocolate cups for Thori, scattering them. Preparing a little scavenger hunt for the little guy, in a way. “That’s why I don’t feel bad missing out on Spot anymore. Don’t look for us after 8.”

Magpie rolled his eyes. “I am insulted that you must tell _me_ that. Me, of all people!” Racetrack laughed. 

He nodded to the dog dashing for the farthest piece. “What about Thori? I kinda feel bad leaving him here.”

Magpie followed his line of sight, and smiled at the canine. “He’ll be fine. He’s a survivor.”


	3. Chapter 3

Magpie still remembered the first time he (remembered he) had entered the great mansion. It stood behind an imposing if rickety gate at the end of a driveway slicing past an expansive lawn. One half of it had been turned to a baseball field while the other was presently being made into some sustainable farm of sorts. The interior was, as it had always been, old hardwood polished to an inch of its life so that the artistic chandeliers, with their refitted lighting, were reflected clearly on the surface. Combined with the carpets and the heavy drapes, the overall effect was something heavy, classic, earthen with a healthy shade of russet. But somehow, the occupants had always found a way to make it brighter and more age-appropriate, as they liked to say. 

The architecture was majestic, as old structures tended to be, but the layout was fairly simple. There was a basement and an underground garage, and on the ground floor was the lobby, the sitting room, the game room, the dining hall, the kitchens and the laundry area, among many others. As for the rest of the levels, that was where the bedrooms were found—one for every resident. It was a very generous arrangement, as far as charity houses were concerned, but they had already gone through something traumatic, there was no need to make their present days equally terrible. 

Suffice it to say, Magpie had been thoroughly impressed with his new life, then. That was the same effect they were gunning for now with Wiccan who, until then, had been residing in a Victorian era compound. 

They pulled out all the stops they could think of—the banners, the streamers, the disco ball, the loud music and the alcoholic drinks. There had been food (had been—they were all growing young men and women, boys and girls), party games, and creative consequences that required Davey to put the under-underaged to bed before any of them could be sued for child abuse. 

Before long, the celebration had wound down, and there was barely a dozen dancers left on the lobby, now strewn with confetti, popped balloons and colorful cups. Magpie himself stood withdrawn by his personally spiked punch, bopping his head absently to the beat of the bass while he browsed his Instagram, scrolling past tipsy faces, happy faces. 

He smiled softly, like a man inflicted with nostalgia. 

“Uh…”

He looked up from his phone. 

“Magpie, right?” the young brunette asked, finger to him. 

He smirked at his uncertain look. “Yes, Wiccan,” he confirmed, “I am called Magpie.” Up close, the man looked younger than him, slimmer and just about his height. He hadn’t noticed this before when Kelly had introduced them and he was stuffing his face full with bacon bombs. 

“Race warned me you spoke funny sometimes.”

“The English is a funny language, and that is not my fault,” Magpie said with his own warning finger while he slipped his phone inside his coat. “Clearly, this is victim blaming.” Wiccan laughed, and he thought it sounded nice. He smiled a little brighter now. “Have you only come to confirm rumors, then? What else did Race tell you about me?” He crossed his arms, shifting to get more comfortable on his feet. He liked to hear what people had to say about him. 

“Umm…” Wiccan rolled his eyes up in thought. He had a very charming way of wearing his hair sideswept. Magpie couldn’t help but notice it—as well as his eyes, which sparkled. They looked very intelligent. “He also mentioned that you liked knives so much, it was a wonder you weren't called Blade.”

Wearing a smirk, he lifted one side of his coat to present his sidearm. “Guilty as charged,” he pleaded. 

Wiccan gawked at the peeking hilt. “No way!” he cried. “You really carry one around? I thought they were just pulling my leg!”

“It _had_ been brought to my attention that my reputation tends to precede me.”

“Do you know how to use it?” 

Magpie popped a brow. “You may as well tell me if you’re being serious or not.”

Wiccan stuttered, raising his hands in peace, “Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just,” he shrugged, tossing a hand to Magpie’s hips then stuffed his fists inside the pockets of his crimson jacket. “I’ve never met anyone who knows how to use knives. Outside the kitchen, I mean. I just thought it was cool.” He was pink now. 

It made Magpie smile a little. What a bashful fellow this one was. And so natural about himself! That he was kinda cute was definitely another plus. He thought he should like to get to know him better. 

“My skills with the knife are unmatched,” Magpie said. He winked—get it? Get it? “And you know what else is unmatched? My dance moves. Come on, we’re dancing.”

“What!” Wiccan protested but that was all he could do. Magpie had already grasped his hand, linking their fingers together as he dragged him out to the open floor. “But Magpie—wait, I don’t know how to dance!”

“Who cares!” Magpie laughed, throwing his hands up as they stood facing each other. “It’s _your_ welcome party, _you_ get to make the rules. How about this? Hm?” Thrusting and rolling his hips to the beat, he raised his arms and dipped his knees slightly. “It’s easy enough!” Flinging his head back, Wiccan let out a great laugh. Even Magpie had to snort and grin. “Come on! Dance with me.”

“I’m not as good as you.” But he was already swaying, adding a kind of sickly bop to his movements while he was at it. 

Magpie groaned and rolled his eyes. “That’s the point of dancing. There are no rules ‘cause we’ve broken them all! How about this?” Now he was sliding his hands down his legs while he swayed his pelvis. “Come on, you can do better than that!” 

Wiccan had tried, God bless him, but stopped just as soon to shake his head. He went back to his original form but this time, he was at least moving a little harder to the music. 

Magpie smiled for him, matching his movements. Just in time to lipsync the chorus to his dance partner when it came along through the speakers. _Come and get your love!_ he sang, meeting the beaming Wiccan eye-to-eye. _Come and get your lo-ove—!!_

He sidled closer as the guitars played the second verse, reaching over Wiccan’s handsome shoulders to rest his elbows, scant inches apart to being chest to chest. To which Wiccan visibly _froze_. “Shhh,” he said softly, looking him in the eye as he swayed them both. “It’s okay. This is okay.”

“Magpie,” Wiccan stammered again, casting uneasy glances to each side while Magpie sealed the loop of his arms around him. He had no idea where to put his hands. “Everyone’s watching,” he hissed. 

“Everyone’s minding their own business,” Magpie assured him, nudging them both closer, smiling sweetly even as he played with the little locks of hair at the back of Wiccan’s neck and Wiccan stiffened—but not in the way that excited Magpie. The poor boy looked like he was this close to calling his mother. “And don’t mind Crutchie over there, he never notices these things.” He nodded to the man spinning around the DJ booth, jabbing his finger up. Magpie thought maybe a little joke might soften him up. “Or as I like to call him: Prostheti _ckie_. He lost his right leg from the knee down back in the Chitauri Attack, see. And ever since, he’s been the proud owner of a Stark Leg. Now he feels like he’s Iron Man. We call him Iron Leg, sometimes,” Magpie chuckled. 

Wiccan made the attempt to smile, but he may as well not have. Magpie dipped his head a little to meet him in the eye, smiling gently still. “Hey,” he spoke quietly, just barely audible with the music, “this is just dancing.” And him hoping for a good time. 

The younger man’s lips quivered, with words that were cramming their way out of his hesitation. “Magpie,” he managed finally, raising his hands uncertainly to his elbows. “I,” he began… “I already have a boyfriend,” he whispered shyly, unwilling to meet his new friend’s eyes. 

Magpie chuckled. Geez, it was just a boyfriend. “What?” he asked, smiling cheerfully. “And so?” And then it hit him: 

“Oh. You’re monogamous.”

“You say it like it’s such a bad thing.” Wiccan pouted. 

“Bad for me!” Magpie snorted, tossing his hair back as he rolled his eyes. “Shame, that.” But by then, they’d already stopped moving and had already stepped back to a more respectable distance from each other.

“Are you trying to make me feel bad for my choices?” Wiccan was frowning at him. 

Magpie cocked a brow and smirked at him. “I may be an unfaithful partner but I’m not desperate to get laid. There’s plenty to go around, besides.” He looked around the empty lobby, so easily recovered from his disappointment, he might have risked hurting Wiccan’s feelings if he was any less loyal than he was. “Not tonight, though, it seems,” he mumbled, exhaling. 

He turned to Wiccan again. “Anyway, this place just got boring. Wanna come up to my place?” He winked.

* * *

“Welcome to my nest!” 

“ _Wow,_ ” Wiccan gasped. 

Through a hidden set of stairs, with which the gothic mansion was rich, and some doorways in the upper floor that had been previously sealed until Magpie had worked his magic on them, they came upon the old house’s extensive parapet. Magpie had always thought that if one wished to admire the beauty and the history of the aged charity shelter, this was the place to be. Each spire that made up the barrier had been spared no details by the original architect. The roof had since been modernized, and at that time of the year, the stars were hidden behind a layer of clouds, but all in all, it was still a breathtaking view. With the front lawn at one side and a lot of trees in the other. 

And it was oh so pleasantly cool and windy! Wiccan seemed to have forgotten all about Magpie’s ill-placed proposition when he leaned out over the low wall between two spires and gazed out into the field. “This is great!” he said, laughing. Magpie fitted himself just beside him. “But you don’t…actually sleep here, do you?” He turned to his companion. 

Magpie wanted to laugh but he clamped his teeth down on it. “No, this is just where I transform. Later, you’ll see me burst out in black feathers and fly out into the night.”

“So you like Game of Thrones?” 

Magpie shrugged. “It was cool at first but got really boring as it went on. And they’ve changed so many things from the book and I think that’s foul. You know, like the bird. Fowl. Foul.” He grinned at Wiccan who rolled his eyes at the pun. Laughter rang up from below to the quiet night. 

They looked down to see a group of boys and girls, perhaps ten of them all-in-all, shushing each other while they escaped the mansion and hurried up the driveway where an old van was waiting for them. One of the windows was rolled down to let an arm through while the person within watched their progress. 

“So why Magpie?” Wiccan asked as the escaping newsies slipped past the gate, locked it, and piled into the vehicle. “You don’t like Game of Thrones, and they said you don’t like birds either…even though you have a nest.” He was trying to get his facts straight. 

The doors were pulled shut. With a low rumble, the van drove off. Magpie smiled. Wiccan had asked good questions, of course. They were the same questions he’d been asking himself. 

“What is a magpie?” he said instead. “A magpie is a tattletale, but from my experience, it’s _me_ everyone’s telling on.” He glanced at his companion. “They say a magpie is also a superstition, a sign of bad tidings. But as far as I can remember, I’ve not had anyone die on me yet. Or well,” he shrugged, looking out into the night again, “maybe I’d lost my family through my mistakes without my knowing, for surely I must have had them some time before. But they say that a magpie is also a word of caution.” His smile took on a sly glint for that. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of this nursery rhyme that says, one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a funeral, four for birth. So maybe you ought to stay away from me, because there’s only one of me.” He paused, left that note hanging for the listening Wiccan to take stock of it. 

“But!” He snapped back suddenly, to spin around, startling Wiccan out of his thoughts, so he could lean back against the parapet. “They also say that the magpie is a symbol for cunning. For deceit and mischief. And personally, I favor that the most. Who doesn’t like a trickster, after all?” 

Wiccan started to make another smile. Magpie never answered his question. 

That was the plan, though. He had never intended to. “And you,” he went on, distracting the younger man before he could ask again. “Why are you called Wiccan? Do you celebrate the belief?”

For the first time, Magpie saw his new friend burn to the shade of an apple, and it delighted him. It thrilled him to incite these reactions! “If the real wiccans heard about me, they’d probably curse me with an unhappy life,” he laughed shyly. Looking up to Magpie, he saw that the man was still watching, expecting a show, it seems. “Give me your glove.”

Magpie whistled and did as he was asked. He loosened the belts around his forearm, three of them, and tugged off the leather accessory. He gave it to Wiccan who took it, weighed it in one hand and held it on his palm, looking at it. “And?” 

“What do you want me to do with it?” 

“Um,” Magpie raised his eyes briefly. “I don’t know. Something fun. Can you make it spin?” That was a challenge—partly serious, partly a joke. 

But Wiccan only pressed his back to the barrier and shifted a little until he was comfortable. He looked at the black thing, concentrating. He started to mutter something under his breath and it took Magpie a moment to understand what he was saying: “Makeitspin,makeitspin,makeitspin,makeitspin…”

He’d almost missed it—his glove shuddering to life, hovering an inch off Wiccan’s palm. And spinning. Clockwise, gaining speed and steadying its pace while the man recited his simple spell. Almost like…no! _Exactly_ like—!! 

“Magic!” Magpie gasped, dropping forward to look closer at his spinning glove. “Yer a wizard, Wiccan!” 

“It’s not exactly magic,” Wiccan confessed bashfully. Magpie’s glove rested on his hand. “It’s more like,” he twisted his face, pulling his cheek up as he thought of the words, “reality warping.”

Magpie shook his head. “Reality warping. Illusions, tricks, it’s all the same thing. It’s magic!” And he was so thrilled, so flushed with excitement to see it. “Do it again!” he gasped to Wiccan, eyes blazing. “Can you make it fly?!”

Wiccan looked around, but ultimately settled for Magpie’s head. “Fly to Magpie’s head,” he commanded, releasing the glove to the air. It floated up, just as it was told, guided by Wiccan’s persistent mumbling, like a heavy bird making the tough climb up to its owner’s crown. 

Magpie couldn’t begin to explain the electricity that coursed down his spine upon its landing. He took the glove, looked fondly at the charmed object. “That was,” he began with a tickled laughter. “That was beautiful,” he said. “That was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen!”

“Wow. You’re being honest, aren’t you?” 

Magpie looked up to the watching Wiccan. “Perhaps for the first time in my very short life,” he said, smiling. 

There was a moment then when it looked like Wiccan didn’t know what to say or feel. In the end, all he did was to smile, as well. 

“Now it’s your turn,” he prompted Magpie, crossing his arms, hips to the lower wall. “Do you know any magic tricks?” 

“Come on, that’s hardly fair.”

“That wasn’t a challenge!” Wiccan laughed. “I’m not even that good. I can make things fly but I can’t do coin tricks.” He trailed off, then, expecting Magpie to finish his sentence. 

Unfortunately for him, he picked up on the cue. And he sighed and rolled his eyes. _Fine_ , he seemed to say—but he didn’t. He just tossed his glove to his feet, unbuckled the other and slipped it free. 

Magpie straightened up and waved his naked hands to his audience. _Nothing here._ He slipped off his short coat next, stripping down to his plain green shirt so he could push back his half-sleeves to show the same thing. _Nothing here. Nothing here._

With a snap of his fingers, he produced a coin out of thin air. Wiccan jumped in delight. Magpie rolled the coin along his knuckles, passing it between his palms, disappearing and then reappearing in the other before he tossed it to the air and caught it on the back of his fist, covering it with a hand. “Heads or tails?” he asked. 

“Tails,” Wiccan said. 

Gone. Magpie presented its absence with a flourish. Then he reached over Wiccan’s nape and slipped off the coin from his hair. “Try again,” he said, showing the head face to the gaping man. 

“What!” Wiccan howled, spinning on his heels in shock. Magpie laughed when he let out another cry. 

“Do it again!” he said. 

“All right,” Magpie obliged, holding out his hand. “Give me a coin.” Wiccan supplied it all too willingly. Holding one coin in each his hand, Magpie showed them to his delighted audience. “Watch closely.”


	4. Chapter 4

He hadn’t managed to get laid last night, despite the best of his efforts—but at least he wasn’t on cleanup duty this morning and that, Magpie thought, was a good enough consolation for the unlaid. 

On top of that (ha!), it was his day off. And he had planned to do absolutely nothing that day.   
He’d spent the morning then on his back (double ha), taking up a whole couch in the sitting room, a Nintendo Switch between his hands (don’t tell Itey). The rest of the mansion went on with their lives, the din of footsteps, of creaking wheels, of voices and doors shutting filtering in through the open door. 

Of a woman asking questions—“Where’s Jack?”—and getting no answers. Magpie grinned at the new voice, keeping track of her sharp, sanguine heels which led her to the sitting room. “Is Jack Kelly home?” 

“Out,” he answered from where he lied. “Showing fresh blood around Manhattan.” While Wiccan wasn’t exactly green behind the ears anymore, each captain of the newsies chapters did have their own styles, of course. Finally, Magpie kicked himself up and turned to the woman standing at the door, looking all over the place until she found him. “Get a girl, get rich and forget your boyfriend? Really, Katherine, I’m disappointed!” 

“And who says _you’re_ my boyfriend?” Katherine cried, marching on her heely boots to find her place beside her friend, practically dumping her hefty shoulder bag (Magpie once asked if she had an entire Iron Man suit in it. She neither confirmed nor denied) on the floor. “I thought we were BFFs!”

“I thought I was your boyfriend forever?” 

“Who’s ever heard of that?” she laughed but soon extended her arms past his shoulders to fall forward for a hug. Magpie buried his face on her shoulder and her lush brunette locks as they swayed in their embrace. “I missed you, though!” 

“I missed you, too,” Magpie sighed. It always surprised him how sincere he was when he said that. 

When they parted, Katherine had a wide smile on her face again, and their hands had found a home in each other’s palms. “I was hoping you’d be home so I could check in on you. I heard you got into a fight!”

Magpie cackled. “Now, I wouldn’t really call it a fight. It’s like calling a slingshot a gun! Suppose they’ve told you what happened?”

“He punched you in the face, you threw him to a wall?” 

“Boy, they certainly didn’t miss out on any details.”

“Magpie!” she cried again, but later on, she could only fall back to the couch on her side with a sigh. “You really had to do it, didn’t you?” 

“If somebody punched you in the face, what would you do? Write them a letter, slander them on paper and social media? Classy but not as cathartic.”

“At least the guy wouldn’t end up with a dislocated shoulder and shattered ribs!” Katherine sprung back up, frowning at Magpie’s high brow. There were more things that she wanted to say about his actions, he could see that on her face, but for whatever reason, something stopped her. And all those words that were, perhaps, meant to sear him—for she had such a capacity to do it—faded in a single puff. “I just,” she tried once, keeping their hands knitted together, tossing her other one up, “I just…I just feel like you’ve been getting into a lot of trouble this late. And it worries me.”

“Was I not getting into much trouble before?” he asked, his voice quiet. She didn’t know, of course. He’d asked her so many questions before, about himself, about what happened, while he was still in the hospital but nothing she said had ever satisfied him. He knew there was more than what she was telling him, but whatever they were, his guardian certainly wouldn’t share them. 

For what it was worth, she gazed at him with apologies in her eyes, and Magpie knew there was nothing he could do but to accept them. At least she had the grace to offer them. For all that she lacked, she was still the only one he could truly call his BFF in this world. 

“Have you found anything about my parents yet? My family?” he added. When she shook her head, he knew not to pursue. 

“I’m sorry, Magpie. But I’ll keep trying,” she promised him, smiling again. It was the least she could do. “And you just…” She threw her hand to him, “hang tight here, okay? Relax, have fun with everyone. I saw the pictures from last night, you guys looked like you had an amazing time!”

“Only because you weren’t around to call the police,” he beamed proudly. 

Katherine slapped his arm. He grinned. “You’re okay now, then?” she asked him, looking hopeful. “I know you don’t remember everyone yet…but it looks like you’ve finally adjusted.” _Right?_ was the silent question she hung in the air with her look. Like something that she dangled but at the same time, was too afraid to ask, in case her uncertainties laid themselves bare. 

It was the curse of someone who already knew the answer—a feeling he only knew too well. For that, he put on a little smile. Just to give her a little bit of comfort before he dashed it all in one fell swoop. “The good news is that nothing’s getting worse,” he reported. “The bad news is that…nothing’s getting any better either.” In other words: a limbo. 

Katherine sighed, her shoulders falling with her spirit. She clicked her tongue, gripping Magpie’s fingers more firmly as she shook them, in something of a demonstration of her determination. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Davey again—” 

“No, I think, for this, you have done more than enough,” Magpie stopped her, enclosing her hand with his other one, “my dear friend.” He met her in the eyes and smiled. Among all of them, she was the only one he could bear this much about him to. It was easier knowing that she knew how he started and was always there no matter what kind of tomfoolery he’d been up to. “Racetrack spoke with me yesterday, made reassurances. That I was among family, that I was safe with them. But you and I both know that words…” he shrugged, “They can only do so much.”

“You’re going all Shakespeare on me again,” Katherine pouted. 

“Well, at least they’re pretty words,” Magpie said. “Makes the truth a little bit more palatable, don’t they?” His smile stretched wider. “You must have felt this way, I’m sure, somehow.”

“Do you feel like you’re missing something?”

“What is there to miss?” Magpie chuckled. “I have a great house with a great kitchen, great food, great parties, great sex.” He sighed, gazing down at his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “It isn’t that I’m missing something, it’s that…” He clicked his tongue, unable to put his ideas into words and it was frustrating. “I feel like I’m a crow, trying to fit in a house full of doves. Maybe that’s why I’m called Magpie.”

“Well, you like standing out, don’t you?” Katherine pursed her lips to the right. 

Magpie looked up to her, and put on a smirk. “That I do,” he agreed. It was the one thing he was good at, after all. He’d tried to conform before and found it difficult to fit himself into a box. So he did the opposite, and realized he had a talent for it, much to the exasperation of his poor fellows. Turns out he was the cause of his own dissatisfaction, after all. 

Katherine placed a hand on his cheek, smiling at him fondly, before she straightened up and raised a quick finger to Magpie. “And because of that, I have just the thing you need!” She reached into her bag then, next to her feet. 

And held out a tiny black vial that had Magpie dropping his jaw in surprise. “It was the last stock!” she boasted while her friend snatched it from her fingers to ogle at it. “If Sarah hadn’t texted me, I’d have _completely_ missed it.”

“The limited edition Black Widow nail polish,” Magpie gasped. “And I thought I’d have to wait for it on eBay!”

“Well, not anymore,” Katherine giggled. She looked every bit like a proud mother, watching her son play with his new favorite toy while Magpie broke the seal and twisted the cap open to inspect the hidden brush. “Hey, I know this doesn’t solve all your problems,” and it would, perhaps, take a lifetime to fix them all, “but at least it can paint your nails. You’ve been looking at it since they posted the announcement on Facebook.”

“And now I can finally face my demons with appropriately black nails.” Magpie cackled, screwing the lid shut. He grinned at Katherine. “You truly are my BFF.”

“Ugh, I know,” Katherine rolled her eyes and tucked a long brown lock so artfully behind her ear. She made herself laugh. 

“And because of that, one must not forget to repay favors made,” Magpie said, reaching within his coat to produce a slender silver tube, plain-looking on the outside. 

But Katherine looked at it as though it was the Holy Grail. “You found the lipstick?!” 

“I told you I could do it.” Magpie smirked victoriously, flicking the cosmetic to Katherine who caught it pressed to her shoulder. “Your BFF would never let you down.”

“Oh my God, I can’t _wait_ to see the look on her face when I—!” She eyed him suspiciously. “You didn’t steal this, did you?” 

Magpie dropped his jaw open. “Steal it? _Me?_ Heaven’s sake, no, of course not!” He spread out his arms. “I’m a changed man! If you want the receipt, I can give it to you.” The receipt, at least, wouldn’t tell her that he’d bought the lipstick using money he’d scammed from…one of the newsies. Specs? Skittery? Sniper? One of them. 

She gazed at it again and let out a little squeal. Katherine opened her arms wide to which Magpie responded with a similar action. “Thank you,” she said, leaning forward to embrace her friend again. 

“You are most welcome,” he assured her, patting her hair. He looked up to the door when a pair of hasty footsteps made their way into the sitting room. The sight of the young brunette searching the space instantly brightened up his already cheerful look. “Wiccan!” he cried, drawing his attention. “You’re back early, aren’t you?” he went on as Katherine peeled herself from his front to turn around. “Did you miss me?” He grinned. 

“Not me,” Wiccan answered. “But someone else did. Hey, Kat.”

“Hey, Wiccan.” Katherine waved back to him.

Facing Magpie again, he said, “Jack wants you in the office now. There’s something you have to hear.”

* * *

“Me,” Magpie said with a start, looking first at the man with the curly hair and a bloodshot look about his face and the one on the settee, with Katherine by his feet and an ice pack on his nose. Jack Kelly stood gravely by the drawn curtains of the windows facing east, blocking out any light that may perhaps cause an injured man an uncomfortable headache. Wiccan hovered somewhere between all of them, casting a worried gaze at Magpie near the door. “I suppose I must feel honored that Morris Delancey would send me a special message, mustn’t I?” 

“If you want me to break that pretty face of yours, yes!” the curly-haired man sitting closely to the injured man barked while the other tittered. The greatest of humor, Magpie fondly noted, could always be found among the miserable ones. A fact of life that he greatly appreciated. 

And for this, Magpie found the gall to smirk. “Well, at least you finally admit to my good looks, dear Mushy.”

“Okay, stop! We don’t want more broken noses here.” Katherine rose while Wiccan flew to restrain Mush from delivering it. Magpie raised his hands in surrender. 

He turned to the man on the couch, his face now obscured by the ice pack and then his eyepatch. “And you, what did he do to you?” 

“Punched me in the face, hung me upside down and kicked me in the guts.” He sighed. “Almost makes me feel like I’m harboring a wanted spy!” 

“Would have made your life worth the excitement,” Magpie agreed. He looked again, first at one face and then the next. “Oh come now,” he flung his hands up. “Blink’s obviously still in good spirits, can you all stop being severe!” 

“That’s kind of hard to do when there’s a bleeding man in the room,” Wiccan said. He turned to the frowning Kelly. “Should we bring him to the hospital?” 

“What?” Blink issued a muffled protest. “Geez, it’s just a broken nose! I’ve had worse, remember?” He tapped his eyepatch. “Hammer Tech Expo? 2010?”

“We’ll need someone to set your nose,” Katherine said. 

“And check you for any broken bones.”

“Mush!” Blink snapped. 

“Blink!” 

“Stop it, both of you,” Kelly sighed, squeezing the skin between his eyes. He moved from the windows, then, and sat himself on the wide oak table that looked empty despite its clerical ornaments. For all that they called this room the office, after all, it was no one’s. It was simply that…it _was_ an office so they kept it around for such official purposes. Although Magpie fondly remembered how Mattie Conrad once pushed him to the table while she straddled him. 

The exact same table that Jack Kelly was sitting on now. “They’re both right, Blink,” was his judgment. “We’ll take you to the hospital—” 

“Jack!” Blink whined. 

“—but you’re coming back here!” Kelly snapped, eying him pointedly. “Wiccan and Mush will go with you.”

“Actually,” Wiccan began, but weakly, glancing at the waiting Magpie. 

“And Delancey?” Magpie prompted. “And the rest of his cronies? Surely our great leader must have plans for him, too!” 

Kelly looked at him. “We’re not engaging.”

“No?” Magpie almost laughed. He flung a hand out to Blink and Mush’s soft whispering. “You see what they did to our brother! And we’re _not engaging_?” 

“You broke his brother’s bones!” 

“He attacked a child!” Magpie roared back, to everyone’s surprise. “He attacked Les, I stepped in to defend him, and now his brother sends me a message written on the body of an innocent man and you call that justice?” The confusion, the thinly veiled disgust, was printed clearly on his face. “Is this how you’ve been leading your merry troupe all this time?” 

“Magpie,” Wiccan moved to him now, “calm down.”

“If you have a problem with my leadership then you can pack your bags and leave!” 

“All right, stop it, both of you!” Katherine snapped, marching between both men, a terrible glare on her face. “No one’s getting thrown out,” she eyed Kelly who seethed at her, “and no one’s going to fight Delancey, too.” This time she turned to face Magpie. 

Magpie only stared at her, a dark look about his face. 

Katherine exhaled, addressing both men now. “This won’t end even when you exterminate both brothers. Everyone else is just going to take up the mantle to defend their honor. And a war between chapters is the last thing we need.” Again, she looked at one and then the other, driving her point home. “You’re all that’s left of each other. You shouldn’t fight! I’ll speak with Mister S—” 

In a heartbeat, they both snapped to her, like a pair of cats catching sight of a prey. She froze suddenly, eying them both warily. 

“Sponsor,” she finished. Kelly melted, drawing back his fangs while Magpie rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. Katherine looked at him anxiously. “We’ll let him take care of this, okay?” she said, hoping perhaps for understanding. 

But Magpie met her gaze with a cold, quiet look. “You know, I don’t see why you should worry about me being thrown out when I don’t see the difference. You blame me for the attacks, you refuse to acknowledge my help and you wouldn’t even tell me who this mythical sponsor is! When clearly everyone knows him.” And this, he blamed Kelly for specifically, facing him. 

He returned to Katherine then, and smiled. “But I’m still here, and for that I do feel an ounce of being welcomed and accepted.” He paused for effect. “About as much as a furniture does, I’m sure.” With that final note, he punched the door open and stormed out, ignoring any pleas for him to come back. “Magpie,” one of them persisted, chasing him. “Magpie!” 

He’d only stopped because Wiccan had outrun him, grabbing him by the arm, blocking his path. “Magpie, could you just calm down? Don’t run off looking for trouble, please!”

That hadn’t been Magpie’s idea. And the truth was that he didn’t know what he wanted to do, he just needed to get out of the room. Punching a Delancey through a window seemed like a good enough idea. Until Wiccan had prompted it and now it just felt unoriginal. The next best thing would have been to cool his head off in the parapet, but Wiccan would surely just follow him up there. And whose fault was that? 

So he crossed his arms, and looked at Wiccan. He’ll think of something. But for now, he’d wait and hear what the younger man had to say. 

Wiccan breathed out in relief. “Look. I’m new here, I don’t know what’s happening but obviously everyone’s emotions are high. I’m not going to tell you what to do but can you please just not do anything rash?”

“Do you know who this sponsor is?” 

Eyes wide, mouth open, Wiccan started to speak. 

“Wiccan,” someone called to him. 

They turned back to the room where Mush was bracing Blink against him, the other man’s arm thrown over his shoulders. Katherine had closed the door behind them. 

“Get the car,” he said. He cast a look at Magpie. 

Magpie said nothing to it. He only turned to Wiccan and nodded to the bedraggled pair. “Go, before Blink runs out of blood.” 

Wiccan sighed, and started to turn away from his steely gaze until he decided to sneak in a quick grasp of Magpie’s wrist before he left with the patient, heading for the back of the house. That gesture had come as a surprise, and Magpie thought he appreciated it. 

From the direction of the lobby, he heard the doors open, and several heavy footsteps coming through. “Well, _you’re_ finally home,” Davey’s voice echoed. “Where were you this whole time? I called Medda and she said you weren’t in the club last night! Jake?” 

Jake was among those who’d snuck out the previous night in a van. Along with Bax, Lowe, Jo, Monahan, Guv, names he’d practically memorized, what with Davey constantly reciting them, demanding to know their whereabouts. If Magpie wasn’t allowed to move any further with this Delancey business, he thought he might as well distract himself with gossip. That was at least entertaining. 

He had to thank his luck and his poor mood, though, for making him slow. Otherwise, he might have missed the sharp, “Jack!” that cut through the door. He stopped instantly. 

Magpie installed himself quietly to the door, moving carefully lest he be noticed. He could hear footsteps pacing. Katherine’s heels. 

“I know what he said, but don’t you see? It’s not working! He’s not a child we can just keep distracting. Sooner or later, he’s going to find out, anyway!”

“So what do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?” Kelly’s voice, high-strung. “Do you want me to just tell him who the sponsor is?” 

“Yes!” 

Magpie’s heart skipped a beat. 

“Kate! Kate, that is _exactly_ what he told us not to do.”

“Well, he’s not here, is he? How bad could it be? We could just tell him and then ask him to keep it a secret.”

“That’s not going to work and you _know why_.”

“ _You_ don’t know that.”

“He’s not dumb, he’ll make the connection if we tell him!” 

“He doesn’t remember anything!” 

Magpie stumbled back, as if the door had just burned him. For a hot second there, he could see his hand flying to the handle to shove the door open but all that fizzled out when he whirled to meet Davey marching to the hallway. His heart stopped. Even the world seemed to stop as they stood staring at each other in surprise. Could Davey read everything from his face? 

He moved suddenly, racing the other man before he reached any conclusions. Magpie cast a cautious glance over his shoulder to the door. “Probably not a good time to approach him now,” he advised Davey, speaking low. 

“What happened?” Davey asked. 

“What else but the Delancey Brothers?” Magpie lied, sighing and pocketing his hands. “Well one half of them. Morris strikes again.”

“Who?”

“Blink,” Magpie answered. Davey’s mouth fell open. “Broken nose, kicked tummy. He’s on his way to the hospital with Wiccan and the boyfriend.”

“Oh man,” Davey sighed, running his hand up his hair. “That’s bad, all right.”

“And you?” Magpie nodded to him. “What’s gotten you so upset?”

“It’s nothing, it’s just petty stuff,” Davey answered after a pause, rubbing the back of his head. “I was just looking to vent.”

Jake and the others, he imagined. What else would a mom friend vent about? “Well,” Magpie spread his arms, “today’s your lucky day!” 

“Oh no, it’s really okay.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if I’d just revealed that I was actually on my way to the kitchen to see about putting together some spaghetti with meatballs.” An offer he would not have made to Davey’s partner, but he liked kind men, and Davey was one such. If it hadn’t been for his unshakable morals, he swore he would have already pinned him to the wall by now. 

This was the closest he could get then. He wouldn’t exactly be _pleasuring_ the man, and making him blush and moan with that particular skill set of his but, he could at least _please_ him and make him blush and moan with his culinary talent. It really was difficult to seduce a wholesome man. 

“You’re joking,” Davey said, with a barely restrained smile. He really was cute, Magpie thought. 

With a little smile of his own, he tossed his head back. “Call Les.” Davey hissed out his glee and thanked him. Magpie grinned brightly. God, he really wanted to kiss that face!

* * *

That had been a happy distraction, even though there had been no kissing or flirting involved and the demons had come crawling back swiftly after. 

He ran his hands up, then down his face, the smell of polish still fresh on his nails. He looked up the mirror from where he sat at the foot of his bed. 

His reflection looked back to him—black hair, green eyes, green shirt, frame slender and slouched. His lights were off, and there wasn’t even any moon out to brighten up his plain and gloomy walls. 

With the weight of his problems, he rose and shuffled towards his vanity table, leaning over to look closely at his face, pressing his hands at the flat top. The first of his many tragedies was that he didn’t recognize his face. That nose, those widish lips of his, they told him nothing. He didn’t know where they came from, who’d given them to him. 

He touched them, like a man trying to touch reality. 

_He doesn’t remember anything!_ Katherine had said, her voice echoing in his head. 

She knew about him more than he did, perhaps even who his family was, and where they are now. He should have confronted her about this before she left. He’d counted on her to tell him but she’d withheld that information. Or might have. Alas, he realized, he had no hard evidence besides his hyperactive imagination. Perhaps she did know but could not tell him. Perhaps something, or someone was holding her back. 

_He’s not a child we can just keep distracting. Sooner or later, he’s going to find out, anyway!_

_So what do you want me to say? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to just tell him who the sponsor is?_

Jack Kelly had been adamant about keeping him in the dark. He remembered the look on his face, the tension when Katherine had almost spilled the beans. Was he the gatekeeper, then? The troll on the bridge. 

_That’s not going to work and you know why._

At the center of all this conspiracy was Jack Kelly, who welcomed him like a brother and gave him a house, a home, but no more than that. _If it weren’t for…_ he’d always said, but never finished it for as long as Magpie was around to hear it. 

Jack Kelly was holding the truth hostage— _his_ truth. What was so terrible about it that it couldn’t be exposed? Why must Kelly be the judge of it? 

Magpie’s reflection frowned back at him. Jack Kelly was trapping him in a box, for whatever reason that served him, and he is already breaking free but it is not yet so easy. He had to find a different escape. Forget about breaking down the walls, perhaps he could simply…disappear from them. 

_He’s not dumb, he’ll make the connection if we tell him!_

The sponsor, then—he was the key to his enlightenment. Maybe he was his father, maybe he was some distant acquaintance. But whoever he was, he had to belong to Magpie’s past. Why else would they keep him a secret? Why else would they hold him for hostage? If they would not give him to Magpie, then he would simply have to rescue him. Hijack him away. 

So simple, he couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to figure it out! 

He smiled at his reflection, both their lips quirked to one side. So then—time to steal the truth back. 

First step: revenge.


	5. Chapter 5

“Don’t do it, Magpie.”

He stopped in his steps, and turned. Racetrack stood there, seeming to have just come from the branching corridor of the upper rooms to catch him before he went down the stairwell. 

Magpie smiled and arched his brows. _That’s ridiculous!_ they said. “Whyever for, dear Racetrack?” He turned to face him, approaching slowly. “Wouldn’t you much rather we avenge our Blink against those bullies?”

* * *

“How is he?” 

He watched Mush jump and panic over the loaded tray in a span of a heartbeat. The tinkle of silverware on ceramic rang out vulgarly in the dim hallway as he tried to steady the cup and the empty bowl of what might have been soup. 

Magpie met Mush’s glare with pure nonchalance, leaning against the wall with his arms wrapped around him, stripped to his shirt, his pants and his socks. Mush tried to keep up his frown. 

He gave up soon after, exhaling, shoulders slumping. “He’s okay,” he finally answered, keeping his voice quiet. Both of them stood near Blink’s door and the whole house seemed to already be asleep. “He’s just resting now. The doctor advised him to take the week off but he’s already fighting me. He’s telling me about the Hammer Tech Expo again.”

“2010,” Magpie said; he understood that reference. Mush rolled his eyes and he smiled slightly. “You know, I admire him. Lost his eye, broke his nose but he’s still hanging. There’s a song about that, I remember. Inside my heart is breaking…”

“My makeup may be flaking but my smile still stays on,” Mush finished, nodding and smiling.“Queen, The Show Must Go On. It’s one of my and Blink’s favorite karaoke songs. That’s him, all right.”

“And you?” Magpie asked him, jutting his chin slightly to him. “How are you?” 

Mush bit his lips. He hung his head back, and when he sighed, it seemed as if the old spirits of the aged house had come alive to breathe with him. “All sorts,” he chuckled, somehow managing not to cry just yet. “Worried about Blink, happy he’s okay. Frustrated about what happened, scared for tomorrow, angry at myself. At them…” He turned his head to face Magpie again, sniffling. 

He’d been manipulated, the poor guy. He was called Mush for a reason, and that was something Delancey had noted and put to perfect use. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and showed the world what his weakness was. The whole business just made Magpie gladder that his name wasn’t something like Amnesia. Then again, what would they have waved around to him? What he didn’t know? The truth? 

Well, they may as well have. 

“It’s not fair,” Magpie agreed, nodding in support of Mush. He was at his side, see? “Nothing about this whole business is fair. They hurt us, we hurt them back. They hurt us again…and we don’t.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “They tell us to break the cycle, to rise above it but they may as well have told us to shut up, look down, swallow our pride and hope for the best. The underdog’s luck.”

“You don’t look much like an underdog to me.”

“And yet here we are.” Magpie smirked. 

Mush’s slow smile was his first trophy. 

“For what it’s worth,” Magpie pressed his hand on his chest, black nails standing out against the green of his shirt, “I truly am very sorry. Blink was a message they sent to me. If I had known, I would have—” 

“No. Don’t,” Mush said, shaking his head. “You didn’t throw the first punch, they did. I believe what Les said.”

Well, thank you very much for that show of faith, Magpie thought, barely catching his brow before it peaked. 

“I just,” he sighed again, dipping his head this time, “feel so—” 

“Helpless?” 

“And I just want this all to stop, you know?” Mush went on. “I want Blink to stop hurting, I want us to stop being afraid…”

“We won’t be afraid, if they knew how hard we bit back.” Slowly, Magpie closed the distance between him and the other. “We’re the underdogs,” he reminded him. “We’re the cornered animals they keep pushing. But cornered animals never whimper for life, do they? It’s fight, or flight, and we’ve already flown.” He looked straight into Mush’s uncertain eyes. 

“So…” Mush began after a quiet moment, “you’re saying we should retaliate?” 

“I’m saying we have no choice,” Magpie said. “It’s just the way things are! We can’t,” he tossed his hand to the door, “we can’t just let Blink keep happening, he shouldn’t have to spend more days like this even if they say it’s only temporary. It’s not right!” He looked again at Mush. The man could only seem to stare at his eyes. “What have we done wrong besides? Put our foot down and asserted our rights? Defended our own? Why should we be denied those? Why should we wait for more Blinks before we wake up to the truth? And who should come next? Skit? Elmer, Albert? Must we wait for them to attack Davey and Kelly before we act? Racetrack?” He smiled then, shook his head. “Oh, but that’s worse, isn’t it? You attack Race, you attack the entire Brooklyn Chapter. And that’s a war we can’t afford, can we?”

He left the question hanging for Mush to answer for himself, and let him absorb everything he’d said. Even in the silence, he could still hear his words lingering. 

As did Mush, he was sure. 

He broke the stillness gently with a sigh, dropping his shoulders, looking longingly at Blink’s door. “I do miss the sight of him,” he said apropos of nothing. “This mansion feels so much older, emptier without it.”

Quietly then, Mush mumbled, “I did nothing.”

Magpie looked at him. “Now Mush,” he said, “you can’t do that. You can’t make yourself feel that way.”

“No, but it’s true, I did nothing,” Mush sniffled, bringing teary, but angered eyes up to Magpie. “Compared to what Blink has done for me, I did nothing. I couldn’t even fight back when they were hitting him because I was scared of them, for the both of us.” He sniffled harder, rubbing his fist on his eyes. Ah, love. “It’s not right. It isn’t fair.”

“Mushy…”

“He stood up for me when I needed him the most.” Mush put on a brave face to match those words with, and he showed it to Magpie. “It’s time I do the same for him.”

Magpie smiled at his courage shyly. He pressed his hand on his, a sign of solidarity, naked skin to naked skin, and he choked up. Poor Mush, so touch-starved.

“You should go back,” Magpie said, nodding to the door. “Blink will be waiting. I’ll take these for you.” He eased the tray from Mush’s tired hands. 

When he tried again to protest, Magpie only gestured to the door again. “Go on. I’ll be on Stark Message.” Mush thanked him, then, attempted a smile before he ducked out of the conversation and stepped back into Blink’s room. Poor Mush, Magpie thought. With his heart full of love, branded on his sleeve. What better reason to be called Mush, after all? 

And how better for Magpie to put it to perfect use?

* * *

Racetrack sighed. “If you think I don’t want to punch him in the face for what he did…you know you’re wrong.” He swept his hand sideways. “But this isn’t the way to handle this.”

“If you think,” Magpie replied, “that we would do this if there had been a different way, you know you’re wrong.”

“I find it hard to believe that.”

“You find it hard to believe many things, dear Racetrack,” Magpie said. “You think justice will serve itself. What is justice? What is fairness? Equality? This?” He raised his hand to the walls that protected them. “If you think there is justice then why are we hiding behind these walls? Why do these charity houses even exist!” 

“That’s a different story, Magpie.”

“All stories are connected.” Magpie smirked. “We’re all just fighting to survive. _All of us._ ” He looked Racetrack in the eye, made sure he understood the meaning of his words. “I’m sure Mush would have explained our reasons to you.”

“It wasn’t Mush who told me about the plan,” Racetrack said. “It was Wiccan.”

* * *

“Are you happy now, Magpie?” 

“ _Gods above!_ ” Magpie cried with a jump and stumbling steps until he caught himself, all this echoing out in the emptiness. “Wiccan!” he hissed at the shadowed corner next to his room. “What the hell are you standing there in the dark for?” 

His eyes looked strangely brilliant, illuminated in the dim light. Wiccan shuffled out finally, revealing himself with his hood over his head. “I was waiting for you to come back.”

“I can see that,” Magpie spat, displeased by the surprise. He put his weight in one of his legs and crossed his arms, frowning. “Not many can sneak up on me like that. You happy, then?” 

“We need to talk.”

“You could have just texted me.”

“We need,” Wiccan repeated patiently, “to talk.”

Magpie sighed, still surly about this encounter. But he opened his door and bowed slightly as he presented the dark interior to his guest. “Please make yourself at home.” Wiccan welcomed himself. “Condoms are at the first drawer in the nightstand.”

“Don’t bother,” Wiccan said, pushing off his hood. When Magpie flicked on his lights and shut the door, he took the time to explore his quarters. “Wow,” he said, sweeping past the plain walls, the empty tables, those surfaces filled only with Magpie’s usual accouterments. “This is all you have?” 

Magpie leaned himself against the wall and crossed his arms again. “You shouldn’t expect too much from a man who doesn’t have much. Be gentle, you’re hurting my feelings.” He watched Wiccan wander to his dresser and pick up a four-pointed star made from silver. “Yes, that’s real. Put it back, it can cut you.”

Wiccan did, setting it beside a simple belt loaded with small knives. He inspected the others carefully; there was a switchblade, a butterfly knife, a Swiss Army knife, a couple of pocket knives with varying lengths, widths and flicking mechanisms, two pairs of stilettos in different sizes and what was unmistakably a dagger. There was so many that the collection had spread out to the writing desk nearby! Wiccan turned with a wary look about him. Magpie raised his brow. 

“You’re not gonna bring this all tomorrow, are you?” 

Magpie smirked. “And here I thought we were trying to avoid a war?” 

“I’m a little afraid that means something different to you.”

Magpie swung back and let out a mighty cackle. “Oh, Wiccan!” he laughed, marching slowly to the younger man who moved away from the knives. “So serious! Although I’m a little hurt that you would think that I need a pair of knives to make myself clear.”

“You don’t have to go tomorrow,” Wiccan said. “Tomorrow doesn’t have to happen.”

“And what will I tell Mush when he comes asking?” 

“I’ll talk to Mush.”

“You really want to stop this, don’t you?” Magpie asked, and for once, he was being sincere. “Why?” 

There was conflict in Wiccan’s eyes where Magpie didn’t expect them. The guest knew how to hide from him but without the shadows, everything about him was as plain as day. He stuttered, “Because I care about you.” Magpie’s heart jumped. “Because you’re my friend,” Wiccan persisted, growing more confident. “Because you showed me to the parapet and you thought my magic was cool.”

Such kind words. Such sweet sentiments, and they did make him smile. Like warm honey balming the vacuum he felt inside him. If only for a bit. If only Magpie was just more foolish. Oh how much of his problems would cease to exist if that were only the case. 

“Reality warper,” he whispered to Wiccan. A reminder. And the flinching look Wiccan gave to him felt almost as good as the sweetness of his kind thoughts. “Don’t worry your pretty head. I’ll take care of us,” he promised, but his own sweet words did not leave the same effect on Wiccan. 

He looked troubled, like a boy who wanted to speak more, to say something else to defend himself but found his chances wavering. He cast his face down and sighed. 

Wiccan left Magpie without even a note of goodbye.

* * *

“You know,” Magpie sighed, tossing his hair back, “it really is a shame that guy is monogamous.”

“If you really feel bad for him, you’d stop this now.”

“I can’t,” he said, facing Racetrack’s frown. “Remember? Mush is counting on me.”

“That’s what you say.”

“That’s what he says, too.” Magpie shrugged. “Race, it’s not like I’m doing this for me, I’m doing this for him! And Blink.” He shook his head, bracing his hand on the side of his waist to get comfortable. “You should have seen the look on his face last night. You should have heard him! If you did, you wouldn’t even be trying to stop me.”

“I still think there’s a better way to do this!” 

“What, like waiting? Praying? Hiding with our tails between our legs until this whole thing blows over?” Magpie smiled brightly, chuckling. “Come now, Racetrack. You know we’re beyond that! And you can’t deny Blink and Mush this, not after what they’d been put through!” 

“And you think _you_ know better?” Racetrack snapped. “Just because you spoke with Mush last night?”

“Yes,” Magpie answered, the beacon of calmness. “Because I know what it’s like to be treated unfairly, and to be denied of something that truly, and rightfully belongs to you.” He smiled despite Racetrack’s look of confusion. “Happy?” 

Racetrack failed to answer. Magpie’s phone rang. 

He slipped it out of his inside pocket to read the message. “Oh look. Mush is waiting for me. So,” he kept his phone again, “will that be all?” 

Racetrack shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Magpie—” 

“If it is, then I must be on my way. Places to be, people to see, faces to punch.” Magpie passed him and clapped him on his arm. “Good talk.” 

“Magpie, wait,” Racetrack whirled to catch his attention just as he was about to descend the stairs. “Come on, there has to be another way!” To his surprise, Magpie paused and looked thoughtfully into space. 

“Actually, there is,” he revealed, facing the suddenly hopeful man. “If you tell me who the sponsor is, I might change my mind.”

“What?” he sputtered. 

Magpie lifted three fingers. “Three seconds. Three.”

“What!” 

“Two.”

“Magpie—” 

“One.”

“I can’t!” Racetrack cried, looking suddenly lost and bewildered. “I can’t say that, I’m sorry!” Just as Magpie had suspected. 

He grasped his hip again. “Well then, I suppose I have an appointment with Delancey. I’ll let you know how it goes.” With a little wave, he started down the stairs. 

This time, nobody stopped him.

* * *

“He’s coming!”

There was no plan, no method in their approach. Quite bluntly, it was show up, sell a few papes, make yourself visible and wait for the party to come. 

That led them to an empty alley then, Mush trying not to show his tension as they picked a spot somewhere towards the middle of the pathway. 

“Shouldn’t we be hiding?” Mush whispered. He was already starting to crouch behind the dumpster. 

“Like guilty felons? Heavens no!” Magpie dumped his papers onto the plastic bin and and boosted himself to sit on them—the actions of a man who no longer had any plans of selling. “Get up from there, you’re making us look suspicious.” He pulled out his Starkphone and started to scroll past his notifications, kicking his feet to bounce on his seat while he waited for their meeting. “Ugh, can you tell Elmer to stop sending me invites to Superhero City?”

“Aw, he just wants to play with you.” A sharp whistle made Mush jump. 

Magpie turned to face the direction they’d come from and raised a hand to wave. “I got your message,” he called out to the approaching figure. 

“Did you like it?” the newcomer asked. He was an imposing one that dressed himself in deep shadows when he stood against the light. He was, Magpie thought, a little bit more good-looking than his brother but they both had faces that would have been the picture definition of _douchebags_. If one were English, that is. He even had a bowler hat to complete the effect which Magpie decided was a little bit better than the fedora the first Delancey fancied. If a little more hilarious. 

Magpie frowned in thought. “Can’t say. It’s a little too passe for me.” He jumped off the garbage bin and straightened up his coat. “But I’m cooler than you so that’s understandable.” He twisted his neck sideways and loosened up his fingers while the other man cracked his knuckles. Three more shadows parted from his. “Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there.” He waved to them, then pointed at them. “Were you deliberately hiding them or was that already your grand entrance?” The sudden additions alarmed Mush and he tried to call Magpie’s attention but was deliberately ignored as the other man approached his opponent. 

“You talk too much,” Morris spat. 

Magpie smirked. “Good to know I’m finally living up to my name.”

Morris looked past Magpie’s shoulder, but the sight of Mush (who jumped and stumbled back) only pulled his frown deeper. With a gruff nod to him, he demanded, “How’s your boyfriend? Shouldn’t you be at home taking care of him?”

“Okay, knock it off, you two.” Magpie snapped his fingers in front of Morris’ face to draw back his attention. “I’m starting to feel ignored.” He crossed his arms and tilted his chin up. “I have a proposal. Now you and I have some bad blood steeping between us. Your brother hurt a friend, I hurt your brother, you go on to hurt another friend which brings us,” he spread his arms sideways, “here. Before we know it, everyone would be revenging on everyone and we’d never be done in time for the next ASOIAF book. So, what I’m proposing is,” he gestured to each of them with an open hand, “you, and me, finish this here, and now, and call it square. Call it a tie-breaker—if I win, I get to close the loop and if you win, you would have proven your superiority over us.” He smiled widely, bringing up his two thumbs. “Deal?” 

“Wait now,” Mush protested, pulling Magpie to look at him. “That wasn’t the plan! I thought we were going to do this together?” 

“No?” Magpie raised his eyes in thought. “As I recall, the plan was for you,” he pointed to Mush, “to bring me out here to the city, because there is the matter of keeping me in a leash lest I murder someone, and then we will meet up with Delancey. And you, my good friend,” he clapped the stunned Mush, wearing the face of a played man, smiling proudly, “just accomplished both parts of the plan perfectly. Congratulations!” 

“Are you done?” Morris rumbled. 

Magpie swung to face him with a smile. “Do you accept?” 

“On what conditions?” 

Magpie gestured to him. 

Morris folded his arms over his chest. “Mano a mano,” he said. 

“Ahh,” Magpie smiled, “ye ole fisticuffs. Excellent choice, Sir! You really are a man of the classics, are you not?” He reached within the train of his coat, then, and pulled out the black dagger from its sheath. Morris’ face remained impassive but he could feel his other friends staring at his weapon as he handed it to Mush. “Please have the honor,” he said to him, keeping his eyes on his opponent. That wasn’t the only knife he carried, of course. 

But no one needed to know that. “Well then,” he began, taking two steps closer to the man who tossed out his bowler hat, his arms spread out sideways lazily. “Shall we start with a handshake?” 

They did not—Delancey started with a forward charge, and Magpie responded with an elbow block. The whole alley seemed to have transformed from that first strike, with three voices crying and howling and one of them reminding them that cops could be coming any time now but the beauty of it all of course was that no one gave a damn. 

Morris’ blows were persistent and solid for the most part but every single one of them thus far had landed on a block, if they hadn’t met air. Most of Magpie’s moves were centered around his defense, but occasionally, he found an opening through which he dipped, spun, struck with the heel of his palm, the side of his hand or the rigid tips of his fingers, shaped like a blade in a forward jab. 

Or, if he didn’t find one to his liking, he tore one wide open—reversing Delancey’s attacks, using them against him. 

Entwining his arm around his opponent’s to lock him, pull him forward and smack the heel of his palm up his chin. Their audience echoed out Morris’ pain while he stumbled back and grasped his latest bruise. 

Magpie exhaled and flicked his hair off his face. “You okay?” 

“I’m just getting started.”

“Started?” Magpie laughed. “I thought we were just warming up!” This time, he was the one who charged, and landed the first blow on Delancey’s stronger knee. After a few rounds with the man, it had become easy to pick out his favorite styles, his forms, his strengths and weaknesses. 

He moved like a prize fighter and carried himself like one. That made him a more formidable opponent than his brother, Magpie thought, but then again, he was being unfair. He was giving Morris Delancey the opportunity to show off and land a few more blows which he denied his brother. Magpie could have finished this quarrel in three moves—he was faster, after all, leaner, stronger and harder—but where was the fun in that? Even cats were allowed to play with their food! He just wished he knew where he learned how to fight. He lived a lonely life where he had never seen anyone move like him. 

His first sign of victory was when Delancey stumbled and crashed to the wall. By then the cheers had long gone, consumed by calls to get up, keep fighting. 

“Come on, Delancey!” 

“Leave him alone,” Magpie barked, hand on one side as he watched the man push himself back up to his shakey feet. Morris wiped the blood off his nose which he’d broken from some poorly timed swing of his. Magpie lifted a brow when he looked up. “Had enough?” 

Delancey would have gone on if Mush hadn’t interrupted the match, crying, “There’s people coming!” as he stumbled towards his friend, grasping his sleeve. The same news rang out from the others at the back, panic rising. Magpie turned to them. 

Just in time to miss Mush flying to the wall where Delancey had pushed him. Mush’s yelp brought Magpie back to his friend. 

Delancey was at his face all of a sudden. A brutal hand grasped his shoulder with a desperate strength. 

He could never have predicted the sharp blade piercing through his skin, muscles. The shock prevented him from doing much more than to choke out a gasp and stare at the triumphant leer of his murderer. Magpie felt betrayed, as if he trusted the man to play fair, but mostly he felt betrayed by _himself_. How could he have let this happen? 

“ _No!!_ ” Mush howled. 

And Morris, he grinned, with so much teeth he may as well be impersonating a nightmare. 

“I’ve done it,” he hissed. 

Magpie quivered at his delight. How dare he? _How dare he?!_ He had no right, _no right!_

The pain, the indignation felt like a heartburn, acidic bile shooting up to his chest. It came through in a snarl, in blinding lights at the back of his eyes. 

His hand crashed onto Morris’ shoulder, shoving him off his feet. He flew back, like the wind had taken him. Voices cried, bodies slammed and rolled. 

He caught the knife before it dislodged itself from his stomach. He had to staunch the bleeding. 

But he was already falling, collapsing to his knees and then on the concrete. Someone called his name. 

Someone was crying. 

His eyes felt hot and wet. He glared at Delancey sprawled on the open road, staring at him with barefaced fright. As he should. He growled. 

“See you in hell, monster.”

Horns blared. Tires screeched. 

He blacked out.


	6. Chapter 6

The earth…tasted like metal, like ash fallen from the volcano. The air was thick with it, sharp and heavy as though every inhalation brought in the fine black sand through his nose. 

He couldn’t breathe. The blade had split him wide open and all his faculties were failing him, shut down by the pain. He was dying—how could he have let this happen? He was dying. 

Someone was crying. 

He felt the earth on his back as he fell. More pain racked his already suffering body. Anytime now he would black out, and everything that was him, every fight he gave, everything that mattered about him would be gone. Like the dust on which he writhed. 

Better leave a good last impression, then. Better make it a memorable curtain call—the final laugh before even the gods claimed it from him. 

He stared, the master of obstinacy, at the creature that loomed, masked like an imagined fear lurking in the darkest corners of the psyche. His body was quivering, but with one final effort, he cast one final curse on his slayer. 

“See you in hell, monster.”

* * *

When he woke up, he felt as if he’d just dreamt it all—the newsies, the mansion, Manhattan. Everything. He was back where it all began, beneath a plain white ceiling, in a room that smelled distinctly like machines and antiseptic. He considered his circumstances as the chair next to him creaked slightly. 

A handsome brunette came into view then, looking down at him, his soft hair half-framing, half-obscuring his face. He had a red neckerchief that matched the dark open vest he wore like a uniform. 

“You are one lucky son of a bitch, Magpie,” Kelly said. 

Magpie offered a sloppy smirk as he huffed, “Heh.” Then closed his eyes and returned to sleep.

* * *

“What happened to Mush?” 

Racetrack hummed, scratching the back of his swept back locks before he produced a classic cigarette case—brass, branded A. H.—pried out an unlit stick and pinned it between his lips. “He had an argument with the wall. Guess who won.”

“True love’s kiss.”

Racetrack bopped his head sideways. “Good guess, but no.”

Seemingly downcast, Magpie returned to the fat burger between his hands instead, and gave it a hefty bite. By the time he was checked into the hospital, he had already missed the free lunch that came with the package. Davey handled the paperwork while Jack Kelly took the task of watching over the unconscious Magpie until someone could take his place. That was Racetrack Higgins, then, who surrendered all his papers (and potential sales) to Boots Arbus so he could swing by a Wendy’s for a Baconator Combo, upsized to triple patties and biggie everything, and hurry down the hospital. 

“He was supposed to keep away,” the patient said between mouthfuls of beef and fries. 

Racetrack fell back to slump on his seat, arms crossed. “Honestly, it’s not all clear to me either. Mush said Morris pushed him to the wall when he grabbed the knife. And then it was like there was a cyclone that just threw him back to the wall again. He’s okay, just all bruised up, but nothing broken.”

Magpie slurped at his giant cup of soda thirstily. 

“Anyone tell you about Delancey?”

That wide grin flashed in his head. The hiss of his voice. 

The masked demon that loomed over him. 

“He’s okay,” Racetrack revealed, bringing out a coin to play with. “It was actually the guy who nearly ran him over who brought you here. Quick as can be before the cops caught up. Delancey’s down with a fracture and multiple contusions. I heard there was something off with his blood test too but I don’t think it’s any cause for alarm.”

Magpie blew out a sigh, dropping to the pillow on his back. It was difficult to hide his disappointment.

* * *

The smell of ash was in the air, again. Sulfur, iron…blood. 

His blood. 

The darkness was overwhelming, light and shadows playing with his vision as he gasped like a fish desperate for the water. He could feel the wound burning still on his thorax but he felt cold, so cold. 

It would take quite a miracle to get out of this one now. Why had he even thought this was a good plan in the first place? 

He looked up, to blue summer skies fading in the distance, cradling him. He felt cold, he felt foolish. 

He felt sorry.

* * *

The captain of Delancey’s chapter paid him a visit to apologize for her newsboy’s action. “He likes a good fight but he’s never usually so hellbent for violence,” she explained. “I don’t know what came to him.”

She promised to speak with Jack Kelly about this, like two world leaders settling for a treaty. After her came Boots Arbus in the company of Sniper, and then a handful of his housemates led by Pie Eater who, true to his name, came bearing a blueberry pie. Magpie scarfed it down, of course. 

When he came to, it was Katherine’s turn on the chair beside him, with her sparkling eyes and her genuine smile. “I already feel better,” he teased and she laughed and slapped his arm. 

A young nurse came to check on him, eying the empty plastic tray of the late blueberry pie in the bin suspiciously as she took his vitals and asked him and Katherine a few questions. Katherine lingered by the doorway while she and the nurse shared some last words. 

The perfect time for Magpie to undo the knots at the back and shrug off his flimsy hospital gown. The nurse had gone by the time Katherine had shut the door and turned back to see what he was doing with the taped gauze on his wound. “Magpie, stop!” she gasped in alarm, marching swiftly to him. “Stop that. What are you doing?!” she snarled under her breath. 

There wasn’t anything she would have been able to do. Magpie had already pried the bandage off. He didn’t know what to expect. 

But it was definitely not a clean patch of skin with barely a scar from the penetration, or even a trace of stitches. 

Katherine stood frozen on her feet, staring in disbelief. Magpie sympathized. 

He didn’t realize how hard he was breathing, how cold it was in the room without a decent shirt on. He brushed a tentative finger where he remembered the dagger pierced, then pressed his hand on it, trying to remember the searing pain. He stared at the wall in confusion. Was that all a dream? 

He turned to Katherine who instantly stood rapt with attention. “Delancey?” he asked. 

“Uh,” she cleared her throat, shaking her head, her long hair cascading down her back. “He’s in his room. Confined, just like you. They said he fractured his shoulder?” That was a question she directed to Magpie, asking him to explain himself. 

So it wasn’t a dream. Magpie exhaled, closing his eyes. If it wasn’t a dream then where was his wound? 

Where was it?

* * *

“Stark Tech.”

Magpie raised an eyebrow. “Stark Tech?” 

“Yeah,” Wiccan answered, washing down his shawarma with some milk tea before he continued. “Stark Tech’s not that expensive. I wouldn’t be surprised if this hospital has it.”

“That’s not—!” Magpie cut himself off with a soft snort, frowning at Wiccan. Wiccan lifted his brows in response, biting into his wrap. “My wound wasn’t cauterized, I think I would remember that much if it was.”

“Captain America’s superhuman serum was Stark Tech.”

Magpie pointed to the clear bag hanging over his shoulder with his diminished shawarma. It had a thin tube that ran between it and his wrist. “In that thing? I doubt it.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I don’t think they’d just let a random orphan have a taste of the superhuman serum just to be kind.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Wiccan repeated. “What I’m saying is, between technological excellence and medical ingenuity, there must have been something Stark Tech did to boost your healing.”

It was a nice thought, if one that was suspiciously simple. Some of his fellow newsies have often remarked about his strength and speed, normally after a scuffle that involved him, but even the best athlete needed some time out for their recovery. 

Not that he had any arguments to counter Wiccan’s hypothesis, and looking at his shawarma offered him no ideas, either. 

He stuffed the last of it in his mouth—he was trying to make it last a little longer but it was already getting cold. He crumpled the paper and the plastic, then pitched both at the already overflowing bin. 

Magpie whistled. “Boy was that good. I’m glad we’re still friends.” He looked at Wiccan. 

Wiccan paused to meet his gaze mid-bite. He lowered his wrap slowly. Magpie could see him processing his thoughts in his face. “Of course we are,” he said after a delay. Magpie grinned. “Why? What makes you think otherwise?” 

“I said something hurtful that night,” Magpie admitted. “I am sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” Wiccan shook his head. “I was trying to get in the way of your plans. I understand why you’d say that.”

Magpie smiled for that. Taking advantage of this reassured friendship, then, he pointed at the box of fries sitting on his nightstand. “Are you gonna eat that?” 

“Yes?” Wiccan popped a brow again, chewing. “I told you I was saving that for last—no, that one belongs to my boyfriend.” Magpie had pointed to the box of muffins next to the fries. He gaped at the other brunette, bewildered. “What’s wrong with you? You’re still hungry?!” 

“I just don’t like seeing food go to waste.”

“You’ve already had an upsized Baconator Combo, a whole blueberry pie, one pack of girl scout cookies and the shawarma, all in a span of four hours. And you’re still hungry!” 

“I’m a recovering man,” Magpie said, shrugging. “I require sustenance.”

“I think you’re already getting more than your fair share of sustenance,” Wiccan countered, taking a bite from his shawarma again. “And you wonder why you heal too fast.” That, at least, made Magpie laugh.

* * *

With the day turning to night and his visitors waning, Magpie quickly grew bored. He was never really fond of TV, had no real love for popular music and even his social media provided limited content. Soon he had refreshed all of them for what they were worth and read everything, even the ones that were only remotely interesting. He was so close to finally accepting Elmer’s invitation to Superhero City. 

But like all major decisions in life, he thought it was better to sleep on it first. So that was what he did. 

He hadn’t expected the room to be so dark when he woke up again. Evening must have passed, he thought, and with it his dinner. Magpie felt a disappointment that mingled with emptiness, then. He looked forlornly at his barren nightstand. Maybe he shouldn’t have finished that pie and those cookies so soon. No one had even thought to order him some pizza. Oh, to be forgotten by your friends so soon…!

A soliloquy that came to a jarring end at the sudden outburst of a song—one of those preppy girl band kpop ones only Crutchie seems to be able to tell apart. The last time he had heard it was during the balloon relay race back in Wiccan’s welcoming party. 

Crutchie would be a good housemate to have at his time of need, he thought. He was always willing to help out at the drop of a hat. Technically the man was an amputee and should not be treated as a servant but he also had the coolest leg among them all and very much loved to show it off. 

Feeling a little better now at the thought of a friend, Magpie raised himself slightly to meet him. He had a ready smile on his face as he searched the empty room for him—but the man he found was very much not the one he was looking for, who was tall and stringy with lopsided shoulders and a gangly way of standing. 

This one was also tall, but a giant. With broad shoulders and muscles that could not be concealed by the hoodie he was wearing. His golden hair was shorn, with stylish lines criss-crossing the sides. It was he who owned the noisy phone which he then gave to a woman in a nurse’s garb who was panicking at the volume, apologizing and explaining himself. “I am not yet so familiar with the Starkphone. Parker must have changed my singing tone again.”

“Ringing.”

“Yes, it is ringing.”

“No, I mean it’s called the ringing tone, not singing tone,” the nurse explained, calmly now that she had reduced the volume to a viable whisper. 

“Oh,” the big man said. “Sorry.”

“Well, do you want to take the call?” 

“Uh…yes, I should. Take that call.”

“Okay, you just slide this bar right here,” the nurse squeezed herself closer to the man to show him his screen, and he moved sideways to watch. And Magpie’s heart stopped when he saw his brows furrowed in concentration and his bearded chin, “to the green button. Yes, now slide it—no, don’t tap it! Just press it gently, like you’re just sliding…um, a button.”

“Stark makes it seem much easier than this.” He was trying the nurse’s instructions again and again with his thick pointing finger. 

“I’m sure you just need more practice…” She trailed off, watching with bated breath. She did a little jump when the music finally stopped. “And there you go! You’re on the call now.”

Stiffly, he raised the phone to his ear, frowning slightly at some point in the air while he listened to his caller. “Understood, I’ll be right over,” he promised. “No, I’m in the hospital. There’s no need to send me an escort, I can go there myself.” A few more seconds of silence, and then he inspected the screen before he slipped it back in his pocket. “Well, I must be off,” he informed the nurse, who nodded in understanding while he offered her a smile. “Thank you, again, for looking after him.” He couldn’t take it any longer. He was leaving! 

“Don’t mention it,” the nurse said with a shake of her head. “I’ll let you know when he checks out.”

“Thor?” 

In the silence, Magpie thought his voice was too loud. He hadn’t needed to shout but his heart was racing and he didn’t want to miss this chance. By some stroke of godly luck, _Thor was there_ , standing _in his room!_

Of all the Avengers to ever avenge their miserable planet, it was Thor who he admired the most. He was a kind man, a kind _god_ who regarded humans with compassion and fondness. He was their protector—he had said as much and sacrificed more for them who was not his race—and he was generous with whatever he had, which was more than he could say about other godly personalities. He had always harbored a secret wish to meet him someday. 

He couldn’t believe that day was now. “Thor,” he said again, pushing himself up to sit. “You’re Thor, aren’t you?” The uncertainty seemed to have affected Thor himself who had to pry his eyes off Magpie to cast a questioning look at the equally clueless nurse. He was afraid now that the God of Thunder, with all his fame and glory, would just ignore this nobody. Maybe it was a bad time, he thought. Thor was needed elsewhere and he was supposed to be asleep (and hungry). 

The nurse opened her mouth, but one second too late. She was the one he ignored now, in favor of facing Magpie with a smile as he confirmed, “Why yes. I am.” That deep thrum of his voice. The wide friendly smile that crinkled his twinkling eyes. It was him. Magpie would have been able to tell it was him even from a mile away! 

He laughed, all thoughts of his missing friends banished from his head at the sight of this god. “I can’t believe it. What are you doing here?” he stammered. 

“Well, I,” Thor fitted his big hands in his jacket pockets, “just thought I’d drop by. You know, I was across the street when it all happened.”

“Oh?” 

“Yes,” he repeated, nodding. 

Magpie giggled like a tipsy man. “Fancy that,” he muttered. 

Thor started to approach, and his heart stopped. But the nurse came just then to tap his elbow, peer at him and apologize. 

“I’m sorry but visiting hours are over,” she said. Magpie’s mouth fell open. So soon! 

“Please, couldn’t you make just one exception?” Thor tried, speaking quietly to the well-meaning nurse. That was all Magpie needed to push for more time. “Just this once,” he asked her with a little nod. 

The nurse was caving but still she persisted, “I’m really sorry but it’s hospital rules.”

“Please, madam, it shouldn’t hurt,” Magpie pressed, throwing his voice into the discussion. “I’m not terminal and I am already well-rested. We’ll be quiet, of course, if that is your concern.” He looked at Thor this time, putting on a smile, hoping for his support. “Won’t we?” 

Thor responded with a little smirk of his own. Turning again to the nurse, he added, “You heard him. It’s just as he says.”

The nurse turned, first to Thor and then to Magpie putting on his most hopeful puppy look yet. Then with a shake of her head and a roll of her eyes, she finally agreed. “Ten minutes,” was her condition. 

“Yes,” Magpie gasped. “Ten minutes is perfect!”

“I’ll be outside.” She gazed at Thor to make sure he understood the rules. 

Thor thanked her with his own happy smile. He hadn’t even waited for her to close the door behind her when he had resumed his approach. Magpie’s heart fluttered. “Where did you learn to speak like that?”

“I am called Magpie for a reason,” he boasted, practically glowing with pride as Thor took his place by his legs. Well, technically that was a lie, he didn’t know why he was called Magpie but it was as good an introduction as any, he thought. He had to leave a good impression. 

Although he wagered he already had—Thor, the greatest of all the Avengers, the truest, was sitting there on his bed after he’d negotiated for time to spend with a stranger. Magpie did this—this was all him! 

“Is it true that you really came here just to visit me?” 

“You don’t believe me?” Thor replied. 

“Of course I do!” He was gasping with excitement and Thor was smiling at him as though he and Thor were… 

He couldn’t explain the sudden ache in his heart, although he knew why it was there—because the truth was that he was alone in this whole damn world, that he was giving Thor the impossible task of filling up a role, but admitting it to himself was a different task, of course. “It’s just that,” he tossed his shoulders up, pushing through. How he must be blushing! “Not many could say that they had been visited by the God of Thunder.”

Thor laughed, and he kept it quiet, of course. It reminded him of the distant rumble of thunder, the kind that succeeded a harmless spark of lightning in the distance. His heart was beating. 

He caught himself gazing at Thor’s eyes, both of a different color. He never expected this of the God of Thunder, and that of all colors to wear, he should will one of them to be brown like an ordinary person’s. 

But the other one—the blue one, it pierced through the darkness like the light of day. Like summer skies, or perhaps the edge of a lightning bolt. And it looked at him and Magpie wished it would linger forever. 

“I was worried about you,” Thor revealed. “But, it looks like you’re doing well, aren’t you?” A great hand rose and patted him fondly on his knee. 

Magpie almost burst out crying. “I must be,” he said with an arrogant tone again. He lifted his chin proudly. “I’ve survived worse.” Well, he must have, to lose all his memories. “A little nick of the knife shouldn’t bring me down.” Thor laughed again and patted him again. Anytime now, Magpie felt he ought to be wheeled to the operating room for a cardiac arrest. 

Thor smiled, teeth bright and honest, but somehow Magpie could feel the weight pressing down on it. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it could possibly be—perhaps some distant memory that the secretive god carried all by himself—but he knew it was there. He could feel it in his heart, and it was a tough thing to bear. 

Of course he carried it like a champion; Thor shook his head with the most silent of sighs, and said, “I’m very glad.” Heart in his mouth. It was…less…strangely less than what he expected to hear. 

But it pleased him nevertheless, and seemed to revitalize him with fresh blood. Magpie smiled joyfully. 

The knocking at the door came too soon. Both men, human and god, turned to see the nurse from earlier tapping her watch. “It’s time,” she whispered. 

Already. Magpie felt the familiar void of disappointment. Had he spent much of his time staring and flustering? He felt deflated, like a sick man wrought with fatigue. Ten minutes wasn’t nearly enough, he needed ten hours, ten years! But Thor rose, and he didn’t deny him that. He opened his mouth to speak. 

Magpie raced him to it. “Will you come again tomorrow?” he asked. “In the morning? Before I leave?” 

Thor curled his brows and smirked, looking amused. “Of course I will,” he promised, to Magpie’s fluttering hope. “You’re my number one fan.” This time it was Magpie who laughed, not as quietly as he had promised. 

He smiled fondly at Thor, shoulders low. “So then I’ll see you.”

Thor gave him a thumb up. He lifted his hand to wave and Magpie raised his in turn. Then he followed the nurse out the door, and disappeared behind it. 

With a blissful sigh, Magpie threw himself down his pillow and cackled, this time to himself. Thor…of all the Avengers, it was _Thor_ who had come to visit him, like some heavenly windfall. It almost seemed to him as if Thor had been drawn to him purely by his energy. 

What a nice thought. What a wishful thinking. Magpie smiled fondly at the darkened ceiling, but nostalgia overwhelmed him. It was a strange feeling to be nursing the excitement of a meeting while he was battling an absence that threatened to consume the memory. It almost felt like Thor had filled him with the warmth of a sun’s glow only to take it all away with him when he left. He felt cold and he felt foolish. 

More than anything, he felt, suddenly, a great and yawning loneliness. And he felt sorry for himself.


	7. Chapter 7

It seemed as if the joy that he had felt that morning had simply dissipated from all corners of his memory. 

That afternoon, he was finally allowed to leave the hospital aboard an uber summoned by his constant guardian Katherine Plumber. As far as the wellbeing of his health, his social life and his sponsor’s pockets were concerned, this was great news that required only the greatest of moods. 

But it took time for Magpie to finally admit to himself that he was, unfortunately, feeling the other set of emotions at the other end of the spectrum; he was not really up for this. It had been something he had been dreading all morning in spite of all the bright and happy voices from the doctor and her nurses when they paid him a visit. They had made very sure he would not forget his eventual release, never mind that that was the last thing he wanted to hear. 

The only time he did forget was when Thor had come back, just as he had promised. That was a happy moment, at least—if only one that was too short, lasting only for 15 minutes. Thor had only dropped by, it seemed, to leave his fan a few souvenirs: the same gray Stark Industries hoodie he wore the previous night and then a black dri-fit shirt emblazoned with the Avengers logo at the lower right portion in dim, barely visible gray print. 

He made sure he took a few selfies while he still could. Magpie gazed at them now like someone trying to remember a few of his favorite things. They’d taken it with him wearing his new clothes—one with decent smiling faces, another with him making a funny face while Thor never quite caught on. This was how he spent much of the ride home. 

Otherwise, he slumped like a slug at the back of the car, gazing out the window, watching the city go by. It almost seemed as if his mood had copied the very gray colors that he wore. It wasn’t that he missed the freedom or his friends, in fact he did. 

But what would he tell them if they’d asked him how he had left so soon when Morris himself was still locked up? Or worse, if they asked him what happened to his wound, if they could see it. Magpie could be honest and just admit he didn’t know…but he was tired of it. So sick of telling everyone he couldn’t remember anything, not a single one of the more significant points of his life. Pretense was only fun if you could get something out of it. Playing along was only worthwhile if it wouldn’t last forever. 

Looking up to the gothic gates of the mansion, though, Magpie couldn’t imagine a different kind of life behind it. That house was no longer his place of sanctuary as it was everyone’s. As it once was his. Maybe. But what solace was there to be found in a place that was devoid of your truth? He’d tried to force their hand on it but he hadn’t banked on the possibility of getting stabbed. And putting an end to some conflict they were avoiding before it even started. 

He needed a new plan, a different one. All these thoughts blazed through his head as he got off the car and turned to Katherine poking her head out the window. His clothes and possessions were in a shopping bag he carried in one hand. “I have to go but I’ll try to drop in later, okay?” she assured him. “If not, I’ll text you on Stark Messenger!” 

Magpie lifted his hand to wave, offering no cheerful goodbye for his friend. She rolled the windows up, pressed her ear. 

And then they were off. 

He wove between empty lawns, underneath a blank white sky as he followed the curving driveway. There was a doorbell where he could have identified himself at the side of the gate and asked for an escort but he chose to delay contact and climbed over the iron barrier instead. He hadn’t even knocked when he pushed the door open, welcoming himself to a silent lobby comfortingly bereft of human contact. 

Almost. The older members of the newsies were off making money, pretending they still needed it but the young ones, the ones who were there purely to be taken care of, were still around. 

And they came running in a group of six, two bats, one ball, several baseball mitts at hand as the girl who led their merry troop declaimed, “I know he’s some kind of secret Avenger! I swear it!” 

Magpie stood absolutely still when they appeared, all ambling excitedly to the open door. “Remember? He threw Oscar to the wall with just one hand because he attacked Les. And then he was beating his brother up until he cheated!” That was when they all came to a stuttering stop when they finally noticed the very man they were speaking of. 

For their sake, he flashed them a smile, ear to ear, and assured them, “Oh, please go on! I do love it when people are talking about me behind my back.” Let them tell Davey Jacobs on him, then. He’d like to see them try. 

With a nod, he made for the curving stairs and headed up his room.

* * *

Jack Kelly had come to check in on him as soon as he’d come back from selling papes. Davey had also dropped by, with a slice of cheesecake to boot (and the winner of Most Adorable Man is…!), as did the rest of the older newsies (sadly with no tribute in tow) to welcome him back and ask about his recovery. Racetrack stayed a little longer to share a smoke with him by the open window. Of Mush, there was no news. 

Until he came along himself, walking gingerly, with Blink whose face was still swollen and bandaged for his injury. That was the first time they had all spoken earnestly that he could remember, exchanging gratitude and apologies for all the trouble they had all been put through. Both of them left soon after. 

Magpie thought Mush’s eyes lingered a second too long. 

He went down for an early dinner, then, whipping out some instant ramen and tossing in some toppings to make it look fancier than it had any right to be. He carried this and a glazed donut he’d nicked off an otherwise untouched box (dead center because why should he hide it?) up to his room, passing by the sitting room where someone might catch the pastry thief with the crime in his mouth. 

He came by a pair of heads bent over a single phone, backs hunched and turned. Magpie stopped close enough to peek through the tiny space between their shoulders. 

He’d almost dropped his donut into his steaming broth with what he saw—a recipe for disaster equal only perhaps to the gray video on the screen, shot in an alleyway, taken, perhaps, from some discreet camera overhead. 

He disappeared before anyone could notice him.

* * *

A quick sweep over Google had shown him that the source of the video, and any resulting copies of it, had disappeared since its discovery. But the great thing about the internet was that once it was there, it never truly went away and this was one of the things he pinned his hope on. 

The other was his knowledge of the unseen networks and channels that coursed beneath the epidermis of the internet, like veins of blood, as one could say. This was a key he would never have picked up if it hadn’t been for the very organization he was involved in right now. The news was the source of their trade but the information they picked up—on potential disasters and other such concerns—came from more secret means. 

These were what he tapped into next. This was how he finally managed to unearth the forbidden video from the underbelly of the internet. 

And it was…as terrible as he had expected. Had it only been a clip showcasing his unique fighting talent, he might have even posted it on his Facebook. But then there was that part in the end—the part where he flung Morris off of him, and everyone, everything else around his radius, as though he were a bomb at the center of the blast site. Physical strength was one thing. 

But one that was enough to defy the laws of physics? The laws of earth that bound even Captain America or Iron Man who was a genius? 

Magpie played the video again, and paused the screen at the second where everyone had flown back—Morris, his cronies, Mush. Mush had just recovered from his shock then when he was already flying. 

Flying—that was the only way he could define it. Their feet were off the ground, arms flailing. 

Magpie drew his knees up and stared at the frozen clip. He couldn’t explain how it could have happened and yet his actions were the only trigger that he could see. That the video had caught? But if this was something more global, he would have long heard of it even before he was released from his confinement. Racetrack had mentioned the previous day that Mush had felt the wind— _the wind_ —knock him off his feet and send him to the wall. 

He placed his hand on his stomach, searching for his former wound, where he’d been stabbed. It never came back, of course. For better or for worse, it was gone, perhaps for good. 

He played the rest of the clip. The plastic bin Mush was hiding behind had skidded back before it was twisted out of its alignment. Maybe the child was right, he thought all of a sudden. Maybe he _was_ some secret Avenger. Maybe some mission or other had caused him to lose his memories and he was now placed in this house until such time that he could recover them. Maybe they were trying to protect him and that was also why no one was telling him anything. 

He almost made himself laugh. What a thought! What a life it was he was painting for himself. Was he going mad? Maybe he was. 

What difference did it make? With nothing to go by, he could be anything at all. The sponsor was still his closest chance, but after what had happened…

He rose from his seat, setting aside his empty bowl of noodles while he wandered to the half-opened window looking out to the back. He needed to get out of here. 

The thought gave him pause. This place was devoid of his truth, he needed to get out of it. 

He needed to get out of that place.

* * *

_And the crow flies again!_

If he did turn out to be some kind of superhero, Magpie figured that ought to be his tagline of sorts—like _Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man_ or _To infinity and beyond!_

A thought that occurred to him as he leaped out through his window and came hurtling down the side of the steep mansion until he caught the next handhold. The rest of the steps revealed themselves to him as he jumped and swung from one leverage to another. This was a well-worn path he had mapped for himself as a means of escape…for many unspecified reasons. A contingency plan, as one might say, and one that was readily available for as long as that side of the wall still existed to some degree. No bed sheets required, no fantastically long and strong locks of golden hair needed either. 

He had reached the ground in as little as five minutes and was sprinting down the gate in no time, the train of his short coat billowing at the cool wind, his feet quiet in spite of his boots. It felt good to be running, he thought as he broke out into a smile. It felt good to be out, to be doing what he wasn’t supposed to be doing again.

* * *

He took the long subway trip to Brooklyn Bridge, crossed the entirety of it on foot for a little sightseeing and picture-taking, then hailed a cab that brought him to the corner of the Brooklyn Chapter’s victorian mansion. With no one walking about, it was easy for him to sneak past the gate and scale the east side of the fairly modern house. The window in question was predictably, and fortunately still open—but everyone knew that the person behind it was a self-confessed insomniac. 

Magpie slipped through, as easily as an expert thief. He stood in the empty room, searching the made up bed for its occupant, the open door to the bathroom, the dead writing desk with its missing chair. 

He sighed, and braced his hands on his sides in disappointment as he whirled to meet the sandy-haired brunette sitting behind him by the wall, waiting to be noticed. “Who told you?” he asked. 

With long lips, the young man smirked. “A little witch dropped me a note.”

Magpie closed his eyes and snarled the name under his breath, “ _Wiccan._ ” The other man laughed. Seems like this was just turning out to be one of those days… 

Spot Conlon, the captain of the Brooklyn Chapter, was one of those people he didn’t always get along with on account of being too similar to him. They were both sarcastic, they were both sly and they both had mean streaks that preceded them. They both liked to win and to hurt, to poison and to cut and in more than one occasion had almost translated their dislike into a more physical language (from which Magpie was sure only he and his machismo would benefit). 

Whatever they had now was thanks to the hard work of practically every newsy from both sides of the bridge—but not least of all because of Racetrack Higgins who called the Brooklyn captain his boyfriend and his fellow Manhattan newsboy his friend. 

If for some reason Racetrack had suddenly disappeared, Magpie was sure he and Spot wouldn’t be able to sit side-by-side on the roof like they were doing, as if they didn’t have a very colorful past between them. 

“Sponsor?” Spot repeated, casting curled brows at his companion. For all that kept them apart, one thing Magpie appreciated about the man was his understanding of sensitive topics such as, perhaps, his recent encounter with a Delancey (which Spot surely would have picked up) and thereafter, his hospital vacation which would surely only devolve to a quarrel which may or may not end up with someone flying over the roof. But disagreements aside, Spot was also a breath of fresh air, a different perspective than what he was used to in Manhattan. 

He was, in a way, Magpie’s second chance at his mission. Not quite the fastest way to do it but he was hoping he would suffice. “Like the guy who foots the bills?” Spot went on. 

“Yeah?” Magpie said, playing with a pebble he’d picked up from around the roof. “You call him differently here?”

Spot fiddled with the Captain America shield pinned to his jumper, righting the star. “Yeah. Sometimes we call him daddy.” He snickered. 

“Is he good-looking?” 

Spot shrugged, looking out into the night air. “Not my type. But he’s filthy rich, let me tell you that.”

“Sounds like a daddy, all right,” Magpie echoed. Spot let out a wild cackle. “So you know him?”

Spot was still laughing and grinning when Magpie offered the question. He looked down to their feet dangling in the air. 

“Yeah,” Spot said, looking up to face Magpie. “I do.”

“Really?” Magpie felt his heart jumping. He tried to calm down, act as if this wasn’t what his life, his sanity depended on. “What’s his name?” 

“Charlie,” Spot revealed, and for a moment there, Magpie thought could hear nothing else but the name. He couldn’t believe it, he finally got a name! “But I haven’t met him since,” he cautioned the gaping Magpie. “I only get my orders from a speaker.”

“What?” Magpie spat, confused. That didn’t seem right! “But how—” Now hang on! 

Magpie growled and slapped his hand to his face. “You’re talking about Charlie’s Angels, aren’t you?” Spot confirmed his suspicions with a great laugh. He snarled. “I ought to stab you in the nuts for that, Spot Conlon!” 

“With what?” Spot choked and giggled, too drunk with triumph. “Your wounded pride? You’re not telling me that you went all the way here from Manhattan with a bunch of knives, are you?”

Magpie glared closely at him. “I don’t threaten if I can’t deliver,” he warned him, a distant thunder booming for maximum effect. 

If Spot was meant to retaliate, Magpie had forgotten about that part of the script, drawn away from his adversary by the quiet growl of the empty skies. There was no way he could have just imagined that, he thought. 

Lightning flashed suddenly, and then came another boom. 

Magpie laughed, flying up to his feet as he gazed out to the skyline in victory. He knew who that was, could feel it in the thrum of his heart. “Thor,” he whispered. 

“What?” Spot rose after him, tiptoeing as if that would make him see better. He had always been a very small man. “How could you tell?” Lightning struck again. 

“Thunder before lightning. Also:” Magpie’s heart reminded him of a war drum when he pointed to its direction, “that.”

“That’s just lightning.”

“Have you been hiding under a rock?” Magpie eyed him curiously. “He’s the God of Thunder, he can summon lightning and rain and all that!” 

“So you’re saying that every single instance of weather disturbance was because of him?” Spot challenged him, crossing his arms and popping a brow. “That sounds a bit too far-fetched, my friend.”

“And you’re suddenly the meteorological expert?” Magpie shook his head. From far off, thunder crashed again. “There’s only one way to find out.” Without another word, he jumped off the roof. 

“ _Shit_ , wait—Magpie, _don’t!!_ ” 

And landed on a lower ledge, nearly skidding down the tiles, perhaps straight to a very humiliating death if he hadn’t caught himself and his balance. He whirled to glare at Spot gaping down on him. “Can you not do that?!” he snarled between his teeth. “I nearly fell!” 

“You jumped!” 

“Jumping is not equivalent to falling!” 

“Do you just do that in Manhattan?!” They were whispering really loudly now. Like really loud cats. 

“Who are you, my mother?!” Magpie snapped. 

“No! I just—” Spot reached out with his hands, trying to explain himself. “Listen, I don’t want your blood on my hands, okay! And not here on Brooklyn soil.”

Putting his weight on one leg, Magpie folded his arms across his chest and peaked a brow. “You killed someone, didn’t you? That’s why you’re hiding here, isn’t it?” 

“Well, not yet! And I plan to keep it that way, thank you very much!” Spot spat. 

To which Magpie only smirked. “Are you gonna come with me or am I going to start spreading rumors?” 

Spot bristled suddenly. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Well, you know where to find me,” Magpie said, turning away with twiddling fingers and a small smile. Facing the next ledge now, he took another jump. Spot cried for him to wait again but he didn’t look back, this time. 

That was, until Spot said, “Ugh, fine! I’ll meet you at the gate, I’m taking the stairs!”

* * *

That, then, was how they found themselves stumbling into Prospect Park so near to its closing time. Magpie could tell from the look on Spot’s face that this was not his ideal night out although he also thought that he was a bit too overprotective of his babies. 

But that was why Magpie never lost sight of him, always urging him on, never giving him a chance to stop and hesitate when they were already so close to the lake—which boomed and crashed and smacked and screamed with the voices of anger and energy beams. They’d only come here looking for Thor and there he was, caught in a whirlwind of insect-like aliens where he was the eye and they were the casualty. 

But Iron Man was also there, swooping close, leading a trail of flying creatures screeching for his blood, the first of which soon fell off the chase when it met Captain America’s iconic shield. Magpie had never heard Spot wheeze (he’d lost his voice, caught between staying silent and screaming, “OH MY GOD”) until his eyes fell upon his favorite Avenger multi-tasking between enemies and communicating. Despite his lanky built, Spot grabbed Magpie by the shoulder and started yanking at him with excitement. Suddenly the night wasn’t such a waste of time for the Brooklyn captain who looked flushed. Magpie smirked. So much for hesitating. 

They couldn’t hear what the Avengers were crying over the noise of battle, from under the cover of trees. The aliens, whatever they were, were brown and man-sized, resembling a mixture of the alien from _Aliens_ with their long triangular heads, giant ants with more legs than were needed and maybe even wasps, wings and all, turned rabid by hunger and climate change, their stingers turned to a forked tail. They were fast and disgusting and stubborn, putting on a valiant resistance but were otherwise no match to the combined strength of Earth’s mightiest heroes. Their numbers were many, but limited. 

The last one fell with a cry and a well-aimed shot from Iron Man’s palm. The silence that rang out after was almost deafening. To Magpie, it almost seemed as if the blast and the cry was still singing in the air. 

He was almost grateful for the sound of heavy footfalls converging to where Captain America stood, catching his breath. “That all of ‘em?” 

“One hopes,” Thor answered, sweeping the place with his eyes. The fatigue of battle was clear on his stance and the curl of his brows. 

When he turned to the trees, Magpie gasped and shrunk himself, stepping back in the shadows with Spot’s urging. 

“But we can’t be too sure. The problem with these broodlings is that they breed too fast,” Thor continued, facing his teammates again. Captain America still had his helmet on but his discontent on hearing the news was clear on his face. “We don’t know how many they’ve brought and we don’t know what they’ve told the hive about us. This might just be the first wave.”

“ _Better make sure no one’s telling on us, then,_ ” Iron Man said, his voice filtered through his mask. “ _Scanning._ ” 

The silence this time was oppressive. Spot was breathing too loudly in his ears, matching the beat of his heart, it seemed. Magpie wished he could be quieter but he was too concerned of being soundless himself. He watched them with bated breath and absolute stillness. Thor was clapping Captain America on his shoulders. Captain America was asking him, “Were those broodlings dressed as people or people dressed as broodlings?” Iron Man wasn’t moving… 

Until he caught them. “ _Whup, found some._ ” His blasters sang as blue light shone from the center of his hands, directed both at the gaping Magpie and the panicking Spot. Thor himself took a step forward and shifted his grasp around his magical hammer to better beat them with. “ _All right, appendages in the air or I blast you off to outer space._ ”

In one motion, both newsboys threw up their arms and cried out for Iron Man to stop. Spot wailed out, “It’s me, Sir, it’s Spot!” but for good measure, Magpie stepped out into the light where he could better be seen with his arms raised. 

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled, putting himself in the middle. The idea was for all three Avengers to recognize him easily but his eyes were only trained towards Thor who approached him with shock in his brows. “Please,” he said to them just as Spot had scrambled to his side. “It wasn’t our intention to get in the way, we were just passing through.”

“What are you,” Thor began, pointing to Magpie with his left hand. This was the first time he would see Thor in his full battle regalia—with the iron plates and mail sleeves and the red cape and the hammer. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Manhattan?” 

“I was,” Magpie answered him, nodding. The other two Avengers were approaching now. “But that was before I decided to pay Spot a visit and then we went out for a walk here.” He breathed. “Where we found you fighting off those…those bugs, whatever they are called. The broodlings.”

“But you just came from the hospital!” 

“You took a walk?” Captain America added, crossing his thick arms with his shield slung at his back. Iron Man’s suit crumbled off his face just then to reveal his shocked face. “Here? In the middle of the night?” 

“Well, I mean the park’s still open.” Magpie shrugged. 

“Seaaaaaaan?” Tony Stark sang to the tune of a warning. 

Magpie stopped at the foreign name and turned to Spot who visibly blanched at the real name treatment. “How does Tony Stark know your name?” he whispered. 

Spot pulled up his cheek for a stiff smile. “I’m the secret heir to the Stark Empire, obviously.” He cleared his throat and stuffed his shaking hands inside his jeans pocket, tossing back his hair to act all cool again. “Sir, I was just making sure he didn’t run into trouble.”

“Oh really?” Magpie spat at Spot, turning to him. “And I suppose I was the one cheering for Captain America, wasn’t I?” 

“You were standing there all this time?” Thor drew his attention back with his hammer pointing to the trees they’d been hiding in, just over Magpie’s shoulder. 

“Well, not since the beginning of the fight,” he answered hastily, begging innocence. “We didn’t see too much if that was your concern and we wouldn’t tell anyone, anyway. Honest!”

“You should have just turned back,” Captain America said. “We had a very dangerous situation in our hands here.”

“Wait, you can’t just expect us to turn away after what we saw here!” Magpie protested. If his defense was a house of cards, he was very sure it was already gutting itself from the middle, ready any time to topple over. “Besides, it’s like what you said, these broodlings could be anywhere. What if Spot and I ran into one?” 

“Sounds like an excuse to me,” Tony said. 

“It’s not an excuse,” Magpie snapped back at Tony with a seething glare. “It’s a very real possibility and you know that.”

“Which is exactly why you,” Tony pointed at Magpie, “and you,” this time, he was looking at Spot, “shouldn’t still be out. Go on now, show’s over. Stay out in the clear, don’t get close to trees and shadows. You don’t know what creeps will come out.” He raised an arm to Spot. “C’mon, Spot, give your Uncle Tony a kiss.” 

“Do I have to?” Spot groaned, shuffling heavily towards the older man. It was not a sight Magpie had imagined of the stoic captain and it made him laugh. Had anyone else seen this side of him, he wondered? Did anyone else know of his relationship with Tony Stark? 

Did it even matter to anyone? Or was it just him—because he was standing there like a jilted ex, floating in-between everywhere? As he always had. Turns out you could replace Manhattan with Brooklyn and it would all still be the same. Sad. 

He started to turn back the way they came, then. Just like that, there was nothing left for him here. He didn’t know if Tony Stark really was Spot’s uncle…but whatever was the case, he figured that was something to make the long walk home less boring. Lonely. He tried to cheer himself up—nothing may have changed but at least the gossip would be good. 

“I’ll wait for you,” he called out to the captain as he started off. A last ditch attempt for attention? He almost laughed. 

Everything was quiet, then. He couldn’t hear a single word passing between Tony and Spot and he couldn’t come up with a way to linger without looking suspicious. Not long after, a set of footsteps finally chased after him. 

“Magpie,” the thunder called. 

Magpie turned, and he was there—Thor, the God of Thunder. He stood stockstill as the man approached, surprised by this sudden meeting and touched that Thor would go out of his way to ask him:

“Are you okay?” 

With the fullness of his heart beating in every word. Magpie felt his own bursting. Thor truly was concerned about him! He nodded to him just as the thunderer reached out to grasp him by his shoulder, bent low to meet him in the eye. “I am,” he said to him. “I’m good.”

“You just came out of the hospital.” And wasn’t that the problem that brought him out here to Brooklyn late at night?

Magpie shrugged. “Yeah, I know,” he said, showing Thor a smirk. “That means I’m in tip-top shape, doesn’t it?” 

It did—Thor’s beam said as much, his eyes seeming to sparkle in spite of his weariness. He pushed a heavy hand into Magpie’s black hair to ruffle it as he stood. “Good to know,” he said. Magpie couldn’t stop himself from grinning at the attention. 

Thor turned back then to Tony and Captain America flanking Spot Conlon. Magpie followed him with his head even as he returned to the trees. 

And stopped. The space where he and Spot had waited was empty except for the swaying shadows of the overhead leaves, but something felt off. As if someone had shifted a little something in its lighting and now he could no longer recognize it. 

But he couldn’t tell what it was with just a gaze. He looked back over his shoulder to see the Avengers still speaking with Spot, this time with Thor along. 

It could be anything, but it also could be nothing. All the same, as Magpie shuffled carefully, ever closer to his former hiding place, he lifted his left hand and pulled out a slender blade he had hidden beneath the belts of his gloves wrapped around his forearm. He concealed it from the shadows with a backhanded grip, moving as silently as he could in a quiet night where everything could be heard from a mile away. 

He stopped at the edge of the darkness under the trees and peered inside, looking first right, then left. At first glance, the shadows were nothing but. 

At second glance, he saw its eyes flashing open, catching him. Magpie opened his mouth to scream. 

He fell back, just as an alien head broke free from its hiding place, snapping at him with its demonic teeth. Magpie let out a great wail as he swung his blade up, catching the alien’s jaw with the luck of his desperate attack. Its head flew back with the impact. 

Magpie landed on the grass. With another cry, he turned around, kicking himself up with his feet and hurried back to the sanctuary of the Avengers. He yelled out a plea for help just as a brilliant beam struck past his side and burst at the broodling that was chasing him. 

It was only the first. The next vengeful shrieking followed soon after, and because Magpie couldn’t believe, _didn’t want_ to believe it, he turned around to catch the second broodling crawling frantically towards him, tearing its jaws wide open. Magpie lost his focus then. 

His footwork came tumbling next, dropping Magpie to the grass where he persisted to scream. Everyone else was screaming. Confusion and panic warred within him—he tried to stand but his legs had since refused to help him so he started crawling backwards on his elbow, keeping wide eyes on the alien who grinned at the sight of its helpless victim. 

Rasped to him, “Let me slake my thirst. With the blood of kings!”

Magpie cried out in horror. The alien with all its legs was gaining ground and Magpie didn’t know how long he had left. “Thor,” he shouted, hoping for a miracle. 

“ _Thor!!!_ ” 

The shadow of Captain America fell on him as the man landed over his useless legs in a crouch, hiding the face of his murderer behind his shield. Magpie suddenly grew frightened at its absence. 

Then Thor arrived, with a roar as he came down from the heavens like a vengeful angel. From over his shoulder, he threw down his great hammer with the weight of the world. 

Light burst and consumed everything in its path, roaring with the rage of the wind. Magpie yelped and hid himself behind his arm. 

Then the silence and the darkness returned. Magpie almost couldn’t believe they had been there in the first place, only to be disturbed. He started to get up, an itching panic tickling him to action, but Captain America raced him to it that he could only watch him move. 

Revealing a charred pile of matter at his feet, still smoking. Still recognizable with its long teeth and the shape of its head despite its gruesome fate. 

Magpie choked in his scream and started kicking away. 

“Magpie!” Thor’s voice. “Magpie, stop.”

He stopped, looking around for the god who saved him, trying all his damnedest not to cry but failing, failing so terribly. That was death, that had been death _right there!_

Thor came to him, hurrying past Captain America who stepped back to let him through. “It was talking,” he said to the god, voice shaking, blabbering nonsense. “It was speaking to me! Something about blood…something about kings!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Thor soothed him, kneeling as he reached for him and grasped him at the back of his neck, seeking to comfort. Magpie stared, seeing only his blue eye and the tension in his jaw. “It’s okay, Magpie, you’re safe now. It’s over.” Still, he spoke softly. 

Magpie couldn’t believe that it was—they’d said as much earlier and then the broodlings reappeared. But Thor was there and Thor had saved him when he needed him. If he said he was safe now then maybe…maybe he was. 

He closed his eyes, trying to stop his tears from falling. The aftermath of a nightmare he almost never escaped. It was then that Thor had pulled him closer, and hid him behind his embrace.


	8. Chapter 8

Had it not been for the God of Thunder, he would not have made it back at all. 

It was Thor who brought him home late last night, borne on the magic of Mjolnir. He didn’t know what happened to Spot after but with two Avengers at each his side, he could at least assume that he would return safely to the mansion. 

But as for the trauma, as for everything that came with it, that was a different monster altogether. 

“ _Everyone’s scared,_ ” Spot shared to him, his lazy drawl audible through the call. Spot had put on his mask, again. Magpie could only imagine how it tired him to carry it around but he understood why it was necessary, now more than ever. He could see the same strain on Jack Kelly’s brows here but at least he had Davey Jacobs to ease them and carry some of the load. Spot did not have the same luxury. “ _But that makes it easier to keep them in line, at least. What’s Jack gotten you all doing now?_ ”

“Buddy system,” Magpie answered, glancing up the door to see Katherine Plumber walking into the sitting room. He gave her a wave. She waved back wearily as she slumped onto the couch farthest from Magpie to put up her feet and lean back, drop her luggage-sized shoulder bag to the floor as she usually did. She looked tired, so tired after the meeting with Jack Kelly but she persisted with a smile. “Shortened hours. Curfew for everyone under the payroll.”

“ _Limited movements?_ ” 

Magpie shook his head, running his thumb over the shape of his black nails. “Not that I know of.”

“ _Better tell him to do that,_ ” Spot exhaled. “ _Can’t count on the network to keep his geese together. I’ll talk to him._ ” 

“You hanging on okay?” 

“ _Yeah._ ” He thought he could hear Spot sighing. “ _Perks of the job. Who’s Race’s buddy?_ ”

“Uhh…Sniper Sniperson.”

“ _Where’s Wiccan?_ ” 

“Special assignment.” Magpie slipped lower in the couch to rest his head at the back of it, closing his eyes. “Kelly wants to bank on his magic so he has him on patrol duty, make sure all the newsies are in order.” There was a pregnant silence on Spot’s end of the line. 

Then he sighed again. Heavier this time. “ _Fine,_ ” he said. “ _Sounds fair. I’ve got Wiccan’s boyfriend doing the same._ ” 

“He’s also a magician?” 

“ _No but he’s…_ ” A pause… “ _…special._ ” He cleared his throat. “ _And you?_ ”

Magpie smirked. “I scream for help and Thor’ll come for sure.” Spot laughed. “No, I got Davey. Think it’s a case of Kelly giving his favorite the best buddy.”

“ _I’m sure,_ ” Spot agreed. “ _So you’re okay, then? After…_ ”

“Last night?” Magpie smirked at his concern. “You know what they say: what doesn’t kill me had better start running.”

“ _That’s the spirit,_ ” Spot laughed. Well, that was the plan, at least. 

But getting there was an entirely different journey, and staying there was yet another. 

* * *

He’d almost asked Thor not to go so soon as they landed on his favorite parapet—but in a cool kind of way that went, “So what are the chances you’ll find me in a broodling’s belly tomorrow?” Albeit one that took quite a detour from the point he wanted to make. 

All the same, Thor understood what he was getting at. “I wouldn’t be so worried about that,” he said, wandering over to one of the taller frames of the stone barrier to poke at a missing piece of its design. “The Brood is a highly intelligent species, very militaristic and excellent at strategies.” He sighed briefly. “Actually, that’s the bad news.”

“I figured as much,” Magpie agreed, raising a brow to question Thor’s logic. 

“ _But_ ,” Thor persisted, “for now,” and pointed Mjolnir, handle first, to Magpie’s direction, “it’s good news.” He started tossing and catching the hammer then as he went on, “The Brood wouldn’t launch an attack so soon after tonight. They know we’re ready, and they know we’re watching.”

“Is this because of the hive mind?” 

“Yup.”

“So that means they know all our secrets!” 

“Well, yes, that,” Thor bounced his head sideways in thought, Mjolnir still flying between his hands while he paced, “was a necessary sacrifice. You’d know all about it, of course. Showing off a little, hiding the rest of your tricks up your sleeves.”

Magpie didn’t but he was touched and pleased that Thor thought as much. 

“So what’s the plan now?”

“The plan,” Thor twirled Mjolnir’s grip in his hand, smiling at the opportunity to boast, “is: we’re going to stop them. We’re going to track them down, find out where they lay their eggs, slay their queen and save the world. Because that’s,” he jutted a finger at Magpie, leaving him with hearty words that would buoy him later to sleep, “what heroes do.”

* * *

He fell back next to Katherine and slipped down until he was flush against her side, pinning her down with his weary weight. Katherine fought her squished arm free so she could loop it over Magpie’s shoulder and pat him on his chest where her hand landed. Magpie snuggled closer, bringing his head up to her collarbone. 

“You’re heavy,” Katherine whined. Magpie nodded. “Since when did you become such a magnet for trouble?”

“I wish I knew,” he chuckled lazily. “I didn’t even come looking for this trouble. For the first time, I can truly and honestly say,” he raised his hands, “my hands are clean.” 

“I can’t believe this,” Katherine groaned, “but you’re actually showing it off!” She slapped him playfully for that. Magpie laughed. “I guess you’re feeling better, then?” 

The default answer, of course, was yes. And because this was Katherine, he tried to come up with a more thoughtful response to connect to it because if he didn’t, the woman would consider it her obligation to grill him until she was satisfied and he was annoyed. Katherine didn’t pry but she wasn’t beneath asking ceaseless questions, especially if it involved some news article or editorial she was writing. “I dreamed about it,” he shared eventually. “But I dreamed also that I stabbed them all in the eye and teleported away.” He grinned when Katherine tittered. “It’s like my mind was telling me what I should have done in the first place.”

“Ugh, I hate that! When your brain is showing off.”

“I know,” Magpie snickered. Katherine cackled. “And you? How’s town crying going?” 

Katherine exhaled like a deflating balloon. “Not fun. Never fun. I hate it, and I feel like 80% of the newsies now hate me for it, too. Writing about a potential threat is one thing, plus you get to criticize the government, the church or whoever’s in power while you’re at it. But this one literally feels like it’s fear mongering! Among kids! I feel like an old crone, nagging everyone to listen to me. Or like…like Gaston, at the start of The Mob Song.”

“Take comfort, you’re more good-looking than him.”

“You’d tap him in a hot second if he wasn’t a cartoon character.” Katherine nudged him. 

Magpie raised his head slightly to eye his friend incredulously. “Actually, I wouldn’t?” he protested. “You really are a lesbian, you have poor taste in men.”

“I guess that explains why I’m still hanging with you.”

Magpie elbowed her at her ticklish spot. Katherine squealed and broke apart in a happy cackle. Magpie smirked at the sight of her, slumped over the shoulder of the couch as she laughed. “At least you’re still laughing.”

“And _you’ve_ stopped laughing?” Katherine poked him in his ribs but incited no reaction. “You’re a skilled liar but this isn’t one of your best.”

“I wasn’t saying anything about sobering up.”

A battle cry roared to the universe with its crazy impulses as much as it was a show of stubbornness both to Katherine and to himself. Whatever had happened in his past, whatever terrible thing had caused him to lose all his memories, every aspect of his identity, he would never perhaps learn from it again. But he had lived, not exactly to tell its tale but to mock it and laugh in the face of its failure. If he could survive something so traumatic, what was a few bugs from outer space? 

Both of them fell naturally in comfortable silence—one wrapped in the other’s embrace, the other playing a lazy beat on the other’s shirt. Two comrades-in-arms after a tedious battle, eyes lost in the circular and fanning patterns on the ceiling, from an age gone by. 

Listening to the echoing footfalls outside in the lobby, marching frantically. Approaching, coming ever closer. 

The door whined open. Jack Kelly leaned through the crack and said, “Katherine, one sec.”

“Okay, let’s do this!” She let out a mighty grunt while she wrestled herself free from Magpie’s trap and hurried to her feet. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I don’t think you will,” Magpie called out to the woman slipping past the open door. He sighed, shaking his head for her. The poor girl was overworked, and she wasn’t even being paid for it! 

He grabbed his phone from where it had slid off his thigh to the couch, browsed through his notifications briefly and tapped in a quick message to the group chat where Specs had asked if anyone wanted anything from the grocery ( _Bacon!!!!!!_ ). Everyone else was throwing in a mishmash of legitimate and personal essentials—tissue paper, liquid soap (for a bunch of charity cases, they sure knew how to spoil themselves with luxury), cigarette, frying oil, peanut M&M’s, an assortment of canned goods, quick and easy soups, Gatorade, Welch’s Sparkling Red Grape Juice, ziplocks, zip ties, alcohol, both the cleaning and the drinking kind ( _Bumlets, no,_ was the reply to that one)… 

It was end-of-the-world, nuclear winter levels of panic buying. It always entertained Magpie to know what everybody wanted—who asked for the petroleum jelly, why they needed it, who wanted the breath mints and why they’d asked for so many…he had to know the people who surrounded him inside-out. One never knew when such knowledge might be put to good use. 

He’d almost ignored Katherine’s phone when it rang. He was used to it by now—the synth beat of a-ha’s _Take on Me_ on loop which she’d never changed since she got her phone because she was worried she would never recognize a different ringtone anymore. And she was a woman who took her calls very seriously. 

Which made it odd that she wasn’t hurrying to pick this one up, as though Magpie was expecting her to hear it from across the distance. What to do, then? Anyone else might just answer it and tell them Katherine was indisposed, or even take the phone to the office, assuming that was where this one-second meeting was supposedly taking place. 

Not Magpie, though, who was, to their great misfortune, a big snoop. Anyway, it wasn’t like it would hurt anyone if he took a peek at who was calling, he thought, leaning over to the open bag at the floor. Chances are, this was just the girlfriend, anyway. Or some harassed editor or other. 

The name flashing on the screen proved to him that even he, with his superior knowledge of everyone’s secrets, could be wrong. Because nothing in the world would have made him expect that the persistent caller was none other than Tony Stark himself. 

Nothing in this world would have made him expect, in fact, that Katherine Plumber was in any way or form related to Tony Stark. 

Magpie felt a chill carve down his spine. What was it with that man, all of a sudden? Spot Conlon knew him, he knew Spot’s real name, and now he was calling Katherine and Katherine had a picture of herself posing with a vintage Iron Man glove on. That was the caller photo on the screen, hovering just above the name _Tony Stark_. 

When it stopped, it almost felt as if it had taken all the light in the room with it, leaving it gray and silent. The chill returned. Magpie couldn’t remember any other thought he might have had. Tony Stark. In his mind’s eye, the bright screen was still flashing, the manic ringtone still playing. Tony Stark. He’d been calling Katherine Plumber and knew Spot Conlon by name. Was he the Mister S Katherine had vowed to speak to the day Blink was beaten up? 

Magpie was stumbling to his feet before he understood what he was doing. He moved like a doll lacking his strings, stuffing his phone in the inside of his coat as he swung to the open door. 

His roar echoed in the vast emptiness of the house when he almost slammed into a sudden face. Fair-skinned, light hair cropped closely, standing just a little shorter than him. 

“Jake,” he gasped, breathless, both of them staring at each other in shock. “What are you,” he stuttered, “what are you doing here?” 

“I heard the phone ringing,” Jake responded with as much confusion. “Nobody was picking it up so I thought I’d check. Are you okay, Magpie?” There was concern in his voice now as he reached to grasp the brunette on his arm. “You look like you’ve seen a monster.”

Magpie laughed suddenly. “Funny you should say that,” he said. Jake’s brows quivered slightly. “I was just going to look for Katherine myself, it was her phone that was ringing,” he lied. She mustn’t know that he had been anywhere near that device when it rang. 

“Did you see who was calling?”

“Why should I look?” Lies upon lies upon lies. Magpie’s tone of voice would tell Jake that that was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard of. “There’s barely enough privacy in this place as it is, I’m not about to contribute to that. Do you know where Katherine is?” He had to go. 

Jake pointed to the direction of the office. “Door’s closed, though.”

“Well,” Magpie shrugged, “guess I’ll just slip a note.” He had to go. 

He waved at Jake, then hurried to the direction of the office in an easy jog. He would hide behind the pathways until the coast was clear. 

And then he would leave.

* * *

In hindsight, Magpie realized that him striking out on his own at such a perilous time was not a very smart decision. Then again, while he was often credited for long and winded plans that turn out to be more brilliant than expected, he was also rather infamous for a number of bad decisions his name and his safety have been involved with. 

So why not keep the ball rolling, he thought. Why not give them more reasons to roll their eyes and shake their heads at him since they seem to be enjoying that luxury? For what it was worth, if they asked him where he was, he could at least tell them he was in upstate New York. 

Specifically, in the new Avengers Facility. 

Now there was a story to tell—just second to: “So how did you manage to get inside?” But that was a simple combination of a bountiful fruit basket and flowery words—both of which Magpie had easy access to. 

So now there he was, standing in the middle of a vast and empty room that looked like it was the hollow shell of a future Apple store—but a million times more impressive! There was an array of windows looking out to green fields that reminded him of an airport, and some plush white couches that looked like they were only expensive because they looked plain (a fitting analogy for the people of the same color, he thought) all lined up along it. And then, some pretty sophisticated abstract patterns made by a combination of white strips and black mirrors that everyone is expected to step on without feeling sorry for the floor. 

Still, the entire package also resulted to great acoustics that made the entrance of a very rich man grander than it already was. Magpie turned in time to see Tony Stark slipping on his shades and expanding his arms because everyone had to see the dark blue suit he was wearing, of course. His heart started beating madly—maybe this was what everyone was calling the Tony Stark Effect, but Magpie refused to acknowledge the man’s inherent elegance. 

“Magpie!” he greeted him, his voice reverberating throughout the space. Behind him, a rounder, taller man in a smart black suit followed. “Good to see you here. Slept well last night?” 

“About as well as you might expect from someone who nearly lost his head,” Magpie answered with a polite but cheerful smile. “I uh,” he looked down to his humble offering, then, which really looked humble now in the vastness of the facility, “I never got to thank you for saving my neck back there so uh…” He handed the basket to Stark who accepted the colorful collection with two hands. “Thanks.”

“All part of the job, son,” Stark said, handing the basket to his stoic assistant. “Happy, could you?” He nodded a little as the man bent down to accept Magpie’s offering but not before his employer grabbed a green apple off the side. A bigger fan might have been disappointed by his dismissive actions but fortunately for Magpie, he was no fan and he wasn’t here for admiration. The fruit basket was just his ticket in. Tony Stark could throw it out and he wouldn’t have felt the slightest bit sorry for himself. It would just make it a little bit harder to push his case. 

“Walk with me, will ya?” Stark invited him with an arm over his shoulders as he turned them both to one of the doors leading out to the field. Happy was off with Magpie’s offering, turning back the way they came. “I’ve got a meeting in a quarter hour, I gotta be up in the air like now.” All this while he glanced at his sleek watch. They were marching fast, both of them, and Magpie was shocked to note that he and the billionaire were of practically equal heights. “You could have just called.”

“I thought about it. But then I realized that that would only put me behind a line of journalists, politicians and several layers of automated messages,” Magpie replied, smiling at the man. “I wanted you to get the fruit basket, besides.”

“You sure you didn’t wanna just hand that off to Thor?” 

“I figured he might drop by, being a friend of yours and all.” They stepped through the door, and now the wind was blowing, and beating and Magpie saw that the black chopper sitting on its concrete pad just a few steps off the building was practically ready to leap. There was no time to lose, then. “Also, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

So he did, stopping in his tracks to turn and look Stark in the eye, or try to, what with the glasses and all. “The charity houses. The orphans, was that you? Are you the sponsor?” 

“I’ve made,” Stark glanced briefly at the helicopter before he returned to Magpie, “several donations to your organization.”

“But is it you?” Magpie persisted, even as Stark turned to wave his apple to the aircraft, probably addressing the pilot. “Are you the one paying the bills? Are you the one calling the shots?” 

“Son, I just give some money, that’s all,” Stark answered, peering at Magpie from behind his shades while he clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll talk again, eh? Call me. I gotta go. Happy’ll drive you back.” 

He was off so soon, hurrying to the roaring chopper, waving again to the pilot. Magpie was left to stand lost in the middle of all that swaying green, watching him get on and pull the door shut. His ride lurched and took off with no ceremonies whatsoever. 

And just like that, he was gone. 

Magpie cursed under his breath and kicked the earth beneath his heel. He was so close, _so close_! Tony Stark was a donor, but evidences to him being the sponsor were still up in the air—literally! And even if he was, what then? Did he mean anything to Magpie? 

Katherine was right all along. He couldn’t remember _anything_. And just how convenient was that?

* * *

“Yeah, and keep a close eye on him,” he said over the phone, playing with the green apple in his hand while he looked out the skies, at all the buildings spread out beneath their wings. “He’s slippery as a fish, you know how it is.”

With his special instructions delivered, Tony closed the call, sweeping back to his contact list and scrolling down to find a name. 

The phone was back on his ear, the other line ringing patiently… 

It ended with a click, a deep voice coming on to replace it. “ _Uh…this is Thor? Son of Odin…umm…presently, I am unable to answer your call but leave a message after the beep, and I will contact you as soon as I’m able._ ” The aforementioned beep came on. 

Tony began, lifting a finger and the green apple as he spoke, “Hey, buddy, I just want you to know…a little black bird came flying in just now.” A brief pause. “Anyway,” he waved that thought off his face, “all I’m saying is, I hope you still know what you’re doing. If this turns out to be New York all over again, this?” He drew a circle in the air, “Is gonna be all on you.” He pointed to the invisible Thor with his apple. “You understand? I’ll see you over at dinner, I’m ordering pizza.” With that, he ended the call. 

Tony looked up to his pilot after, bringing the apple to his mouth. “You hungry? How ‘bout we stop for some burgers along the way?” He bit into his apple, waiting for an answer.


	9. Chapter 9

He stood one-thousand feet up in the air, on a tower overlooking the rest of the world, bested only by heaven itself. All around him otherwise was air and emptiness, and a terrible fate for anyone who might find themselves falling through. 

He held one such example in his hand, his muscles tightening as he squeezed his neck, pressing hard on his throat. He could break his bones, he could kill him so easily right then and there. 

But where would be the fun in that? 

He pitched him through the windows, the glass shattering upon impact. 

He was gone as soon as he’d fallen.

* * *

“So is it true, then? Is Stark the sponsor?” 

With a little shy smile, Davey finally nodded. Days ago, Magpie might have thought that this long sought-after revelation would have been celebrated with much hooting and jumping and punching in the air. And maybe it should still warrant such a celebration. 

But at that point, all he felt like doing was exhaling, and mumbling, “So I was right all along.” Which he wasn’t but what did it matter? 

What did any of this matter anymore? To get Davey to finally admit it, Magpie had had to lie to him through and through. Of his visit to the Avengers Facility, he spoke only of the truth, but everything else was a made up tale after. How no other than Tony Stark himself confessed to Magpie that it was him, how it was a part of his philanthropic mission. Once you had some of the pieces of the story, after all, a lie was an easy thing to weave. 

But Tony Stark still meant nothing to him, not even after Davey’s embarrassed confession. When he tried to think of some distant clue, there was only the tower in his dreams, and the man who looked suspiciously like Tony Stark. 

Magpie shuddered. He could still remember the shape of his neck in his fingers. 

Davey whipped to him. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Magpie lied. “Just caught a draft.” Would he ever stop lying to Davey, he wondered. He looked around, at the skies, at Manhattan Bridge over the waters, pulling up his feet to the bench where he and his buddy took a break from selling papes. 

“Why did you ever hide it from me?” he asked Davey suddenly, turning to him. 

Davey scratched at a spot just under his traditional beret cap as he thought about his answer. “Well, you know,” he began. “I mean that’s not something anyone would appreciate if anyone went around boasting about it.”

Magpie cocked a brow. 

“Which, I mean,” Davey shrugged, gesturing to some space between them, “honestly? I understand. Like if I were Mr. Stark, I wouldn’t want to hear someone…waving me around, you know? Like hey. Um, I belong to an organization supported by Tony Stark.”

“Okay, but this is Tony Stark we’re talking about,” Magpie reminded the red-faced Davey. “Tony Stark who has pictures of him shaking hands with everybody, young, old, man, woman, white, black and literally everyone else in-between.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Davey nodded. He couldn’t look at Magpie no matter how hard Magpie looked at him. “But…but we’re a charity organization.”

“Behind a house and lot which I’m sure has his signature on it.”

“It’s just not nice, you know?” Davey finally turned to face him. “It’s just not nice for us to act like we’re some big shots, that’s not what’s expected of us.” Any time now, though, it looked like he was about to break out in hives. 

Davey Jacobs was lying. That was a truth more naked than a skeleton. Magpie sighed. Kelly at least had the grace to be honest that he was lying to your face. Magpie didn’t appreciate it but he appreciated Davey’s terrible lying skills less. 

“Yeah,” he agreed gruffly, “that sounds about right.” But only because he’d had enough of this trainwreck. 

Magpie jumped to his feet suddenly, startling Davey beside him. “Be right back. Gotta take a whiz.”

He was off before Davey could stop him, if he could stop nature’s call at all. The only risk of course was that if he could tell that Magpie was lying—which he couldn’t. 

A lie for a lie for a lie. Wasn’t that what made the world spin? Davey probably didn’t deserve any of it but neither did Magpie. At least on that end, no one was any better or worse than the other. 

He ended up running to the closest playground, climbing over the fence for no other reason than that he had the momentum for it. If Davey ever found him here, he would have to come up with another excuse to satisfy him, but that was a problem for Future Magpie. 

For now, he wandered into the empty lot, catching his breath, hands pushing back his coat from his sides, head low. Manhattan existed only as a distant din of moving cars and passing strangers at the moment. He was a world within another world, and one without an orbit no matter where he searched. 

“Think,” he sighed, hitting his temple with the heel of his palm. “Think, think, think!” He felt like he was a blind detective, surrounded by the clues staring him in the face but unseeing, uncomprehending. He only needed to draw one line between two pictures, one line to find his way but he didn’t know where to start. Tony Stark didn’t turn out to be the key he needed to turn. Who _was_ Tony Stark? How did he know him? How had they met? 

Who taught him how to fight? Who taught him how to blast everyone off their feet? How could he heal so quickly? Why was he called Magpie? 

_Who’s Magpie?_ he asked himself. 

He fell onto the foot of the slide, sitting down to take his head in his hands. Magpie let out a long groan that sounded like a cat trying to imitate the engines of a motorbike. There had been days in the past where his amnesia was easier to bear but of late, the fog was more than he could take. It felt like driving with a misted windshield that couldn’t be wiped clean. It was both frustrating—and frightening. 

He dropped forward in a quick beat, rolling on the concrete just as the hard plastic of the slide resounded with a crack, as though something had pierced through it. On his knee, he looked up, dagger out under his coat while he assessed the situation. 

There was a young woman, dressed in a style similar to the Brooklyn Chapter of the newsies, who stood by the entrance of the playground, feet parted in a stance that supported quick movement. One of her hands hung down her side, empty and ready. 

The other was tossing and catching a slender blade, thin enough to stab through tough plastic, for instance, if thrown at the right speed with the right strength. Magpie didn’t know if he deserved this treatment. 

Magpie didn’t even know her to begin with. So someone else had been running around with knives, after all? 

“Uhh,” he tried, looking uncertainly at his sudden attacker. He got up slowly to his feet. “Listen, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that. Just now, I was having a dramatic moment because I couldn’t remember anything about my life so you’ll have to remind me why you’d want to kill me. Are you an ex?” He shrugged. “Do I owe you money? Did I play a trick on you?” 

“This might come as a surprise for you but actually,” she paused to sigh; she spoke with a soft voice, “this isn’t about you,”

“Ohhh,” Magpie sang, shifting his own feet apart, tensing his muscles for any sudden movement from both sides of the party. “Couldn’t you just pretend, though? It would be great if I could just have one memory from my past come back to me. That would be more than what I have going right now.”

“Mmm,” the woman thought aloud, barely even looking at her spinning knife. “No,” she said eventually. 

She was across the playground in practically a beat, and for a second there, Magpie felt his heart jumping at the possibility that she could _actually_ have learned the same techniques as he had! Finally, a connection! 

But the second their blades connected in a parry, that flimsy hope came crumbling down, leaving nothing but a vacuous scar in Magpie again. Her grip was too soft, and the impact was enough to stun her for the half-second Magpie needed to kick her off. 

She was persistent, for what it was worth. She had a third knife out just as Magpie drew his second one from the inside of his forearm and was back in the fight just as soon. In time, the clash of steel ringing out in the playground would replace the silence that had perhaps been Magpie’s sanctuary for a short time. 

And she moved swiftly, too—diving in and out of Magpie’s defenses, more than once striking out at an open guard if Magpie, in his alarm hadn’t caught her first. Whoever taught him how to play with knives, he was glad they taught him well. 

Blades twisted and dislodged attacks, knives flying as both fighters raced the other to disarm. The weapons scattered on the concrete painted a trail of the duel’s history that was still writing itself. Both parties seemed to have come into the match well-prepared with ammos to lose. Magpie swore he saw a butter knife among the woman’s arsenal once but even a simple tool could be deadly up close. 

He stepped back just as he feinted, missing a stab that would have caught him in the chest if he had been a second too late. He struck off the blade, sending it flying to their feet while he snaked his arm around her empty one and locked her in place for his attack—but not before she could spin her way out of it, loosening her trap and slashing with her last knife. To which he just lost his. 

Magpie glared at the stiletto on the ground before he glanced up and caught the charging attacker with her naked blade held high, twinkling with the intention of murder. He bent himself like a wrestler, hands ready, knees apart and feet planted to the earth. This, at least, he knew how to deal with. 

With a quick swoop, he missed the strike and slammed his shoulder on her abdomen. She gasped at the impact, falling limp as Magpie took advantage of her shock when he lifted her off the ground and promptly slammed her back down, blowing the air off her lungs and the knife out of her fingers. 

He kicked it off as he crouched over her while she writhed and coughed. “Admirable performance but there’s just one thing,” he said, prying his switchblade, his last blade, from the inside of his boot. 

She froze, holding her breath while he pressed it to her throat. 

“Too little knives,” he told her, smiling. 

She met his happy expression with a dark glare, seething. 

This, then, was how Davey had found them when he had finally come running and calling. The question of what transpired in the playground was clear when he cried out, “Magpie?” in his confusion. 

“Precisely so,” Magpie responded positively, smirking at his attacker’s frown. “You up for a little side trip, Davey? Looks like we need to return a lost and found to Brooklyn!” Grabbing the woman by the shoulder, he hauled her up.

* * *

Imagine the look on Spot’s face then when Magpie slammed his fist on his office door and promptly, without waiting for so much as a second, pulled it open, holding one of his newsgirls by the scruff of her neck like some misbehaving schoolgirl, her hands even bound behind her back by the little necktie she wore. 

“Greetings, Captain!” Magpie announced cheerily with a too-sweet smug-looking smile, cutting off the other newsboy who was, perhaps, supposed to announce his entrance. Davey hung nervously (uselessly, as certain Brooklynites might agree) behind him. “Guess who just tried to kill me?”

Spot began, “Magpie, what the hell—” 

“Bingo!” Magpie shouted. He shoved the young woman forward, then, brushing off the other newsboy who tried to get in his way as he sauntered inside the large room, illuminated by open windows to his side, looking out over the property and the street beyond it. Davey was left to apologize for their intrusion, hurrying inside with _his_ newsboy who seemed to be calling the shots. 

Spot’s own started to protest. “Hey, Spot, listen, they just came marching in like they own the place and I tried to stop them—”

Spot cut him off with a sharp look. Clearly, he hadn’t been as useful as he tooted about. The newsboy apologized, looking down his feet. “Lock the door when you leave,” was all he said. 

The whole time, Magpie maintained his victorious look, even as the other newsboy hurried out the room and pulled the door shut behind him. 

Spot fixed his glare on him now, dwarfed though he was by his impressive writing desk, weighed down by several official-looking papers, a scattering of writing tools and a laptop. “So? What the hell is this all about?” 

“Same question I asked her,” Magpie revealed, nudging the newsgirl forward again, himself approaching just next to her. Davey attempted to hold him back but again, to no avail. Clearly, he was committing another crime under the newsies’ law. He should just be banned forever. “But then, she pulled this one out on me,” he revealed a slender piece of silver from his belt, “and I believe this belongs to you, Sir.” He took one step forward, leaving the evidence on Spot’s wide desk like a lawyer in a courtroom drama. 

Spot peered at it and recognized it in an instant as Magpie expected—the fancy letter opener had his name inscribed on it, after all. Something he noticed as he was collecting their knives and confiscating hers. Might even be a gift from his precious Racetrack Higgins. 

He snatched it up to peer closely at it. Magpie spun round his heels to lean back on the table, inspecting the chipped paint on his nails. He ignored Davey’s urgent looks; at this point, he doubted they’d still be thrown out because he was disrespecting boundaries. 

Spot snarled through his nose and raised the letter opener to the stubborn woman, hilt to her. “You took this?” he asked her. “I’d been looking for this all morning.”

Magpie looked up from his nails to the woman, watching for her response. 

She glared at him. Then with a roll of her eyes and her head, she said, “Fine, it was a bet!” 

“What?” Davey spat. 

“It was a bet on whether or not I could fight Magpie, that’s all it is,” she continued, shrugging, ignoring Magpie’s suspecting look. “It’s a stupid bet is all it is.”

“At this time?” Davey went on, drawing everyone’s attention to his round eyes. “When we’re dealing with another extraterrestrial threat? It’s not a time for jokes!”

“Yeah, okay, who’s running the show here?” Spot snapped, scratching his head in frustration. “In case you forget, this is my turf, and she’s my newsy so I’m the one. Thanks for bringing her back but,” he eyed both Magpie and Davey, “I think we can take it from here.”

Magpie lifted his brow at the Brooklyn Captain. “Really?” he asked stubbornly. “That’s it? Hey, she attacked me in _our_ turf!”

“Heard you loud and clear,” Spot sighed, squeezing the part between his eyes. “First my newsies sneaking out at night and now this…” he muttered. 

Magpie stood, crossing his arms at Spot who only frowned at his stubbornness. 

“I’m dropping by tomorrow,” Spot said, waving his visitor off who only rolled his eyes. “We’ll talk, then.”

“Sorry about all this,” Davey began but shut up when Magpie glared at him on his way out the door. “See you tomorrow, Spot.”

Spot raised his hand to wave. 

Magpie stood back from the door, waiting for Davey to pass first as he looked back to his attacker, who looked back to him. The tension between the two of them was as present as it once was. 

If it hadn’t been for Davey’s insistence, Magpie might have lingered long enough to do something about it with his own bare hands.

* * *

It was late by the time they’d made it back to the mansion. Davey hurried to look for Jack Kelly to explain the situation before he heard the news from anyone else which would surely put him in such a mood. Dinner was ready and everyone was calling for Magpie to join them in the table. 

He promised he would after a quick detour to his bedroom where he would have to dump all the other knives he’d stolen. He pushed the door open, flicking the light switch on while he marched to his writing desk where all his spare knives were lined up. 

And stopped, eyes on his personal collection. His window was shut, and so had his door been, he’d made sure of both before he left that morning but that didn’t explain the cold fingers creeping up to his chest. 

Or why one of his blades was skewed a little to the left, when all the rest of its kind was laid in neat rows and columns, in perfect straight and right angles. Just as Magpie had remembered them. 

Magpie breathed. In the silence, his pulse felt like the beating of drums in his ear. What was it they said? Once was an accident, twice was a coincidence. 

But three times, that was enemy action.


	10. Chapter 10

Everything echoed off the cold, blue walls that surrounded them: the clash of steel, the swish of their strikes, the stomps of their feet, the huffs of their breaths. It was a violent language they shared and one they were both well-versed with. At the end of this meeting, he was sure only one of them would walk out of here alive. 

And it had better damn well be him. 

But she was a formidable opponent, with her solid grip, her lightning speed, her skillset, her instincts that must surely be too expensive to be wasted on a hunter, for all that she dressed herself. Leather armor, painted face. 

She locked his dominant hand in a vice-like grip. He blocked her speeding strike and locked her free wrist in turn. With his blade, he pulled back her glove. Red ink emblazoned her dark skin. 

He gasped, looking up to her. She was a—

“—Magpie!” Three slams on his door. 

Magpie gasped, jumping and shaking out of his dream, staring at his walls which until then had been painted in metallic blue. But now they were a plain wooden varnish, empty except for some shadows of some former ornament that will never go away. 

The knocking came again. He breathed, swallowing his spit. “Come on, are we gonna sell papes or what?” the door asked him. 

The red ink disappeared from his vision. Not even the white streaks on the mysterious woman’s face had remained. 

Magpie dropped his head back to his pillow, cursing his luck. He had been so close, so damn close yet again! 

Five raps this time. “Magpie!” the voice called. “Come on, are we doing this or not?” 

He wished he could tell him to go to hell, but Boots was a swell guy, and a great listener, too. And fantastically observant and knowledgeable about many things and quick on his, well, boots, too. Basically he was a guy Magpie wanted to stay on the good side of because that seemed enormously advantageous for his part. 

So he threw his pillow to the door instead—because while he liked the guy, he still hadn’t forgiven him for rousing him from his dream.

* * *

His morning, then, was a veritable mess. 

Spot had arrived early as can be, his bag packed and delivered straight to an unsuspecting Racetrack’s room (Kelly eyed him, satisfied only when Spot rattled his house rules in the order that he liked), to discuss about yesterday’s altercation between Magpie and his newsy who was grounded for a week along with her friend with whom she had a bet with. Yes, her story checked out, sorry, Magpie. Magpie rolled his eyes majestically. They spoke for a bit, Spot reassuring Magpie that the attack would not go unpunished and extracting an agreement that he would not launch a counterattack of his own before Spot disappeared behind the office door, escorted both by Kelly and Jacobs. 

Which, then, was why Magpie’s buddy for the day was Boots Arbus, who passed a stack of bound papers at Magpie like some basketball player upon his arrival to the lobby. 

Magpie caught it with a soft, “Oof!” Who would have known Boots could be surprisingly strong, too! For someone who didn’t punch like he did, that is. “Thanks, I guess.”

Boots braced his hands on the sides of his hips. “Have you even had breakfast yet? Come on, man, what were you up late last night for again?”

Magpie tittered like a drunk as he approached. Boots bent down to carry his own stack. “You wouldn’t like it if I told you,” he giggled, patting himself on his chest. 

Boots had been about to exit the door then when Magpie stopped and searched himself, dropping his papes to his feet and dipping his hand in every pocket he had. He snorted, watching his buddy. “What is it this time?” 

“Forgot my phone. Be right back. Hey,” he pointed at Boots throwing a hand up, “if you hadn’t woken me up like that, I wouldn’t be so forgetful.” He turned back then and hurried up the stairs. 

What with most of the older newsies already out, working for their pay, delivering secret messages on the sides, the walls had regained the quiet of an empty house. Magpie felt ill at ease to break it so he moved quietly, wrapping his hand around his keys to silence its ringing. There was no way Jake would have known he was coming back, of course. 

Jake. Lingering near his door. Phone in hand, glancing constantly at his room. A sight he would never have expected to one day behold—for whatever reason. It wasn’t that he and Jake never spoke at all but the last opportunity they had to interact beyond quick his and hellos was during Katherine’s last visit, when Tony Stark had called her. He’d never had another meaningful conversation with him otherwise. Jake was starting to be more surprising than he gave him credit for. 

Had he always been like this, he wondered. 

“What’s up?” he asked, putting a sound on his steps. His voice sounded too loud in the silence. 

Jake jumped in surprise, staring at him as if he’d seen a ghost. Or indeed been caught red-handed. “Hey,” he breathed, marching quickly to Magpie. “I was just about to text you, Jack and Dave are looking for you.”

“Yeah,” Magpie nodded, glancing at his door again, checking to see if it had budged. “We’ve spoken.”

“Oh,” Jake said. “Well then, I’ll be off now.” He clapped Magpie on the shoulder as he slipped away, making for the stairs. Magpie turned to follow him with his eyes. 

Jake descended, looking at him through the balusters until they were both out of sight from each other. Magpie stepped back, running through the meeting again in his head.

* * *

None of his knives, personal or sequestered, was askew when he checked them again as he picked up his phone and two more blades for good measure. Out in the city, he had Boots sharing what he knew about Jake but could find nothing off in them. Some of them was new knowledge but nothing that gave him the eureka moment he’d been dying for these past few days. 

Whatever was the case, Jake was someone he would have to keep an eye on now. Did he come in his room last night, touching his knives? Had the times been any different, he might have chosen to simply confront the man and invite him to express his desire, partly as a joke but he wouldn’t complain if it ended up with him having a good time. But Magpie had been the subject of several attacks of late, and it wasn’t even funny anymore. 

So how would he do it? How would he get his investigation rolling? 

The idea hit him when he and Boots decided to get some ice cream from a convenience store before they headed back. He was lined up behind the shorter man then, waiting to pay for his purchase, watching the man ahead of them set down a six-pack of beer bottles on the counter. And then: at last, that eureka moment. 

“Be right back!” he called to Boots, dashing to the alcohol section. Boots threw his hands up.

* * *

He set his plan in motion after dinner, at an hour when most everyone would still be hanging around the lower rooms unless they were called away by a text message. 

And one that Magpie had just sent, containing a picture of a six-pack sitting comfortably in his bed. He grinned at the reply when it came— _I’m coming_. 

And come he did, brushing back his black hair as he arrived from the stairs. Perfect, Magpie thought, observing the way his hair fell back stubbornly out of order. He was the perfect man for the job. 

“Sorry about your alcohol, Bumlets,” Magpie said as his opening line, leaning back to the wall next to Bumlets’ room. “Seems hardly fair that everyone got what they wanted from the last grocery run except for you.”

“Well, I wasn’t really bothered. I forgot not everyone in this place had a fake ID. But then you sent me that picture.” Bumlets stuffed his hands in his pockets, pressing his side to the same wall, facing Magpie. “I hope this isn’t a proposition for sex.”

“Please,” Magpie rolled his eyes, chuckling. “This might disappoint you but I’m actually not into straight guys. Too uptight, if you ask me. No,” Bumlets shook his head at his innuendo, “I’m here for a different offer. And as a sign of my goodwill,” from behind his legs, he picked up and revealed one of the bottles from the six-pack he purchased, dangling it in front of the other brunette, “here’s my initial payment.” 

He handed it to Bumlets as he reached for it, inspecting the sticker. “Now shall we discuss my bargain in more private quarters?”

* * *

After that, all Magpie had to do was to wait. 

The signal that Bumlets had accomplished his task came with a note flying in under Magpie’s door. He grinned at the acquisition, jumped out of his bed, and headed out, dressed in his characteristic coat and gloves and boots as usual. The next time anyone would see him returning to his bedroom would be at the stroke of midnight. 

Which would be why Davey Jacobs almost received a heart attack when he saw Magpie himself wandering around the uppermost floor of the mansion. Particularly—right where he wasn’t supposed to be. 

“Magpie!” he squawked, staring at the man waving as he approached, stripped down to his bandana, his green shirt, black pants and socks. He stammered, “What are you doing here?” 

Magpie shushed him, pressing a finger to his lips. “Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits!” 

“That’s not funny, Magpie!” Davey hissed. 

To Magpie’s defense, even his cackling was quiet. “Oh come on, Davey! What could possibly be here that I can’t be allowed to?” Never mind that this section hadn’t been part of his welcome tour. If it hadn’t been for the parapet, he wouldn’t have found this part of the house so soon. 

“That’s not—” But Davey had choked, and was already white like a sheet. Caught, once again, by a little black bird who was, perhaps, too inquisitive for his health. “That’s not what I’m saying, you know that’s not what I’m saying!” 

“It’s not what you’re saying,” Magpie agreed. “But it’s what I’m hearing.” He winked at the wide-eyed man. “Awww, don’t lose heart! Keep it up and who knows? You might actually finally be able to lie.” He smiled. 

That had practically stoppered the man, who seemed suddenly unable to speak beyond false starts. As if Magpie had cursed him by his words alone. He left him to struggle while he stepped up to a blank wall, inspecting the polished surface like some art critic. 

“You know, this place is pretty boring,” he chattered needlessly. At the corner of his eye, he caught Davey bringing out his phone and firing out a quick message. He smirked, choosing to give the man a false sense of security as he returned to the plain wall. He could be generous sometimes. “I mean,” he went on, “I know nobody really comes up here but you must admit, a painting or two would liven the place up a little! How about…an old picture of Stark Senior with moving eyes?” He elbowed Davey, grinning at his idea. “That’ll be perfect for the house, won’t it?” 

“Magpie, I’m gonna have to tell you to leave.”

“Of course. That’s your job,” Magpie said, training his eyes up and to the sides, raising a tentative hand to feel the surface this time. “But what I do is up to me. That’s the thing about this house, isn’t it? You could see it or hide its secrets in so many ways but it all depends on us. So many angles, so many perceptions. So many lies, so many illusions.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Davey was already shaking. Getting warmer, then. 

“Sure you do,” Magpie said, glancing over his shoulder. “The underground network? The sponsor? The security room?” 

Davey stared hard. “What are you talking about?” 

“You know what I’m talking about,” Magpie returned to the wall, looking closely at a spot at the right side portion while his fingers searched its even surface as carefully as a metal detector. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

“We don’t have a security room.”

“Please, Davey dear.” Magpie turned to him briefly. “This is a Stark Mansion. Now what part of the name Stark makes you think he wouldn’t install a security room here in a heartbeat?” Urgent echoes started cracking then, softly at first. 

And then louder, faster as the dim end drew out the shape of a brunette, with a red neckerchief that gave him away. 

Magpie beamed at the newcomer. “Just in time, Kelly! Davey’s been waiting for you. Next time you really ought to teach Davey here how to lie.”

“I wasn’t—” 

“Or how to hide a text.” Magpie raised him a brow. Davey bit his lips. “No seriously, it could actually save your life.”

“Magpie, stop!” Kelly wheezed, finally reaching them. He had hurried from quite a ways away and was hard at breath. “Stop,” he tried again, “this instant. You’re not allowed here!”

“I know,” Magpie said. “You wouldn’t be trying to stop me otherwise. Tell me something new, Kelly.” He turned back to the plain surface, tracing a shape with his hand again. “Such as: when is a wall not a wall?” 

He felt up and down the wood, using his fingers to make measurements. 

“The answer is:” Magpie punched at four spots on its varnished face, “when it’s a door.” He smiled then, at the resulting click. 

And whirled, arms out, just in time to turn the parting walls into an impressive backdrop, celebrating it with an appropriate, “Tada!” Davey and Kelly’s staring faces only added to his excitement. Behind him, the lights switched on like magic, illuminating the polished metallic hull, the empty space in the middle, the sleek computer chairs and best of all: the entire security monitoring system flush against the wall, each screen alive with movement. 

Magpie spun, scanning the impressive set-up with a beam on his face as he stepped through. “Now _this_ is Stark Tech!”

“But that,” Kelly protested, following the errant newsboy into the secret room. “That wasn’t the right password. How did you…?”

“Well no, it wasn’t,” Magpie agreed, putting his hands on his sides as he gazed up at the screens looking over him. “But it is now.” He wasn’t looking for _the_ password, after all, as long as it was _a_ password that _worked_. And creating one was much faster and easier for Magpie than going through all 10,000 combinations and putting the fate of his entire plan on just a few guesses, the acquisition of more sophisticated caper equipments being out of the question presently. Bumlets had managed that part of the plan exquisitely, following Magpie’s recommendation of seeking a senior member’s help on behalf of Davey who’d asked Bumlets for a favor. Once in the security room, it was easy to generate the magic word. Thank God for complete trust among housemates who’s never had a snake attacking them from the inside yet. 

“Don’t worry,” Magpie said, leaning low to brace his fists on the console, peering closely at the lower screens. “You should be able to change it again yourself when we’re done here. Now, where are we?” He looked at all the shifting images. “God, look at how big this house is!” 

“What are you looking for, anyway?” Kelly asked, the exasperation clear in his voice when he took his place next to him, the doorway sealed. At last the man had given up contradicting him. Magpie grinned. That would mean Davey would be a little more amiable now, although he tended to have a more stubborn streak than his partner. 

“The little midnight secrets unseen by the naked light,” Magpie said, searching through the screens. “There’s over twenty of us here, aren’t you curious how everyone lives their lives?” 

“No.”

Magpie rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Kelly. I mean, look at this.” He tapped at a screen, the scene the empty lobby, the characters three men crawling over the floor. “Whatever it is they’re looking for, I don’t think they’ll find it doing that. Or this.” At another screen, one row higher, two young girls pushing a chair up to the fridge to reach the freezer at the top. “They look like they’re off to an early start! I see a bright future for these little ones.”

It was Davey who sighed this time. “So they’re the ones leaving the footprints on the chairs.”

Magpie cackled suddenly at his fine observation. “It’s a little encouraging to know you care less about their moral upbringing and more about the furniture.” Those were hardly the most interesting stories told behind cameras, of course. 

The better ones, Magpie kept to himself, as a player would keep his aces. For instance, Wiccan in the garden, floating, his legs crossed, his hands resting on his knees, upturned. 

Or in the basement, Boots, and another companion obscured by a light off-camera, bringing his arms up to his chest in an x-shape and down his sides in two snappy beats, just before the light dissipated. Hm. Curiouser and curiouser… 

“Hm? Is that Jake?” 

But of course—the star of the night! How could anyone forget? Magpie searched the monitor for him then, spotting it when Davey had drawn both his and Kelly’s attention to the picture with his finger. He stepped out of his room, looking around as he pulled the door shut behind him. He walked to the end of the screen, then, reappearing in another and another as he went down the stairs. 

“Where’s he going?” Kelly asked. 

“You’ll see,” Magpie said, smirking. 

Jake reappeared at the first screen of the lower corridor, walking straight into the next. He walked with bare feet, and movements that were both controlled and hurried. Magpie straightened up, touching his chin in thought. He wondered if he’d always been capable of such movements. 

At the end of the hallway, Jake stopped in front of a door. 

“Magpie,” Davey began, “that’s your room, isn’t it?” 

“Precisely,” Magpie answered with a tone of proud delight. 

“But you’re not there,” Davey continued, turning to face the watching man. “If you’re trying to catch him and you’re not there…”

“Magpie,” now it was Kelly who’d caught on, and the inching worry was clear in his voice, “who did you put in your bed?” 

“Who else has such luxurious black hair like mine?” Magpie smirked. When neither answered, he glanced to both of them and asked, “Do you know that his name is actually an anagram for _stumble_? Funny that.”

“Stumble…Bumlets?”

“Huh,” Magpie said. “I should have given you a harder clue.”

After a tedious inspection of his surroundings, Jake tested the handle then and pushed the door open. 

Magpie leaned closer as he stepped in. “Now what do you want?” he asked the image, wishing there was a way to see what was happening inside. He’d left the door open. 

He stepped back out again to inspect the corridor, probably hearing something. This time his hand held something that protruded through his fist. 

A shape that was all too familiar to Magpie who knew its weight by the side of his hips. “Gods above,” he whispered at the dawning realization. 

The moment Jake stepped in again, Magpie pulled out his phone and tapped Bumlets’ name in his phone list. The ringing sound played in response to his command, audible to everyone in the security room. 

Immediately after, Jake came bursting out of the bedroom, dagger in hand, head swinging all over until he found his way back to the steps leading up. He sped past the screens now, seemingly frightened by the ringing at the other line. He ran so fast, he was almost like a blur! 

Did he always run so fast? 

Magpie’s phone clicked. He raised it to his ear. “Hey!” he responded to the drowsy hello. 

“ _Man, sorry, I must have really fallen asleep._ ” 

Jake was back in his room, looking around before he stepped in and pulled the door behind him. 

“ _Is it good, then?_ ” 

“Yes,” Magpie replied, still staring at Jake’s door. “Yes. I finally got what I wanted.” Answers, but damning ones. “You can go now. Thank you. For your services.”

“ _All right. Thanks for the beer._ ” Another click. 

The busy tone replaced it. Magpie slowly lowered his phone, still processing the discovery he’d made that night. He didn’t know what to expect but this was definitely not it. An attempted murder by your own brother…and for what? Whatever happened to brotherhood? 

“What?” he asked, betrayal sharp in his breath, like he was hissing out in pain. 

Even Kelly and Davey stood in stunned silence, disbelieving what they saw. 

Although it was the captain who was first to move as expected, marching for the door without even a word for his deputy. “Jack,” Davey called to him. “Jack, where are you going?” 

“I’m going to speak with Jake.”

“Jack, are you crazy? He has a knife!” 

“And unless you want to ruin your perfectly symmetrical face with your blind heroics, I would advise you to stop, and think.”

It was Magpie’s words that had caused Kelly to stop and turn eventually, mere inches away from the sealed door leading to the outside. Both he and Davey turned to the almost-victim turning slowly to face them. 

“Jake has never had cause for such treachery in the past,” Magpie began. “Not to you, or to anyone in this whole house and I highly doubt, that he would have murdered poor Bumlets if he knew it wasn’t him in my room tonight.” He paused, looking them both in the eye, ensuring their attention. “Whatever this is, surely it must be some deep-seated anger, or jealousy directed at my person. Naturally,” he tilted his chin up slightly, “I will consider this a personal vendetta.”

“So what are you planning to do?” Kelly marched back to him, brows curled with his discontent. “Go out there and face him yourself? Like you did with Morris Delancey when you got stabbed?” 

“Well, between the two of us, who knows how to survive a knife fight?” 

“This isn’t a matter of your pride, anymore, this is a matter of security! Someone,” Kelly pointed at the rooms, Davey reaching up to restrain him, “in this mansion is ready to kill someone!” 

“And that someone, is me,” Magpie persisted frowning at Kelly. “No, I agree, this isn’t a matter of pride, anymore. It’s a matter of what’s mine,” he jabbed himself on the chest, “and what _should_ be mine, after all: Answers!” 

_Answers!_ the walls growled, filling the brief silence with his demand. 

“And if you think,” Magpie hissed, taking a step closer to the captain and his deputy, towering over them, “that I will just let you _kindly_ get in my way again…” He smiled, looking at each their staring faces, their features rigid with something almost akin to fear. He paused, for effect. “…then I suppose I’ll see you both at the other end of my knife.” He beamed brighter. 

That warning was immediately effective; when Magpie forced himself between them and through them, he was met with no resistance. Even the doors seemed to part readily for his exit.

* * *

His precious dagger was gone from his collection, an empty space left in its absence. 

This time, Magpie had been prepared to meet the sight but the beating of his heart still took on a frantic tune. He found himself wishing for air, too, chasing his breath. 

There was a murderer in the house, and he was the primary victim. It was not a feeling he was familiar with. Quick duels never gave him the luxury to think about his death. No, he wasn’t afraid to die. 

He was afraid of _why_ he was wanted dead. 

He fell to sit on his bed, hands to his mouth. He couldn’t think about sleep, couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t the morning after. He couldn’t possibly find him now, when he could easily be painted as the attacker. No, he would have to time it right, put Jake in a position where he couldn’t make any excuses. 

In broad daylight, within sight of everyone else.

* * *

He managed to sleep a little, but he was up long before morning, listening to the echoes of doors slamming shut, footsteps crossing the corridor, sleepy good mornings. Theirs was a trade that demanded an early start. 

The kind that suited Magpie just right for his mission. 

He joined Spot and Racetrack briefly, left them behind, caught up with Mush and Blink and passed them, hurrying down the stairs. Without even so much as a commentary that would have made even Mush fluster. 

At the back of the mansion was another empty space similar to the lobby that must have served some executive function or other in the past, before they took over. Now it served them only to receive the daily deliveries of newspapers and to hold whatever was unsold, until they would be purchased by the nearby recycling center for the additional income. 

Magpie wove his way between piles of fresh paper and newsies chasing after him with cheery good mornings. None were returned, not even for the opportunity to jest or flirt. 

He had eyes only for one man. One name. 

“Hey, Magpie.”

That was the first time he stopped, turning in surprise to catch Wiccan’s little nod as he stepped over a line of papers. 

“Everything okay?” he asked, hands to his sides, and open. 

He’d never considered that Jake may not be alone—until now. And if Wiccan was operating at Jake’s side, Magpie’s chances for success had just diminished. He could take on Jake, he was sure he could easily best him in a fight. 

But Wiccan would not be so easy. With his magic, he was simply too strong. 

He should stop and reconsider—Magpie knew this but he couldn’t. It was now or never. Fight or flight and he was done flying. 

He turned away from Wiccan, marching on. Boots rose then from where he crouched next to Elmer, watching his progress slowly, and even Mush seemed to stand between him and the clueless Blink when he glanced back. Who else knew? Who else was involved? 

Up ahead, Davey and Kelly appeared suddenly, eying him.

Briefly. Then they gazed down at Jake sitting on his papers, counting the stack in front of him. They wouldn’t get in the way, at least. 

Would they? 

Magpie unsheathed his knife from his side, concealing it at the inside of his forearm. 

“Hey Jake,” he called casually to the man, perhaps too loud so no one could hear his racing heart. “Looking for me?” 

Silence. All eyes now on the quiet Jake. From the corners of his eyes, Magpie could see Boots and Wiccan approaching from both sides. Jake, Wiccan, and now Boots. He couldn’t take them all on. 

He would lose. 

Jake rose just then, dusting his pants with the greatest ease, a friendly smile directed at the wary Magpie. “Thought you’d never ask. In fact, I was!” 

Magpie shifted his foot back, feeling the motion of a slash on his wrist. 

“I was just thinking of slaking my thirst—” 

Magpie’s heart stopped. 

“ _—with the blood of kings!!_ ”

He was a blur dashed in the air, his voice the sound of a thousand screams gone hoarse, ravaged by hell. Everything that Magpie had prepared himself for flew out the window with the wind blown out of him as he crashed onto the ground, the earth exploding in his ears. 

It was cacophonic to say the least—the splash of static and colors, the screeching cries, the pain twisting his muscles, his head. That he managed to stay conscious at all was a miracle in and of itself, and one he took advantage of by sending a fist flying straight to the face looming at him, cracking his jaw. 

He swore he felt that bone break, but all it seemed to do was to delay the inevitable momentarily. That face—those yellow eyes, the depressed nose, the army of teeth—swung back to him after that brief distraction, leering. Magpie had never met anyone else who could withstand any of his punches—and it frightened him. 

And Jake looked frightening enough as he was—a bit too overlarge for a humanoid, shirt broken by his rippling back muscles but arms too skinny, too long for comfort. His pale skin had gone and turned to brass, the flesh now hard as a carapace. When Magpie drew back his fist for another strike, those fingers that had caught his wrist—both wrists—felt less like bones and more like some hardened cousin of a worm, tightening and ever tightening. Magpie screamed when he felt them press into his very own bones but he was pinned to the ground, fists over his head, spindly legs trapping him by his waist and his hips. Exactly where he’d kept most his weapons. 

It knew, Magpie realized too late, staring at the poor Jake’s distended face in shock. Somehow, it knew exactly how he would fight! Someone had told it, someone who shared its hive mind had told it, some _thing_ had shown it all his secrets. 

How dare it!

Damn if it thought it could best him just like this, treat him like he’s child’s play just because he looked easy. It, and its friends, whoever they were! The sheer gall of it nearly suffocated him with outrage shooting up his throat like burning bile. 

Fury burst out of him in a roar that filled the large room as he hurled his attacker across the wide space with the entirety of his mass, drawing a long gash over the aged floor until it crashed into the wall opposite. Pieces of paper rained down in its wake. 

Magpie was up again on his knee, flinging his coat back to draw another blade from the back of his belt. The alien parasite that was Jake let out an enraged shriek as it righted itself on two feet, still half-humanoid if only to look like the product of an alien and some poltergeist from the _Exorcist_ franchise. He’d never dealt with someone who had tentacles for arms and knives for teeth but he figured it would still die if he tore its head off. 

A plan easier to say than do, and one whose first step Magpie still didn’t know as the repulsive version of Jake leaped to dive for him. As with every single moment of his life, he moved by instinct, slashing at its eyes to draw its tentacles up to its face. 

Leaving its stomach wide open for another blade to strike. 

If only he had the luxury to choose his weapon, but a throwing knife wasn’t exactly made for the kind of damage he was hoping for. He’d only managed to cut the rubbery skin five inches open before he’d lost track of his knife and was pinned down the ground again, his head knocking at the floor. Jake was screaming at his face, spittle flying, a pair of insectoid legs bursting through its flesh, sharp enough to gut Magpie at his sides—

“ _Stop transforming!!!_ ”

That may as well have been Magpie himself, screaming for the nightmare to end, crying to wake up. The world stilled itself suddenly, as if gravity had stopped pulling it at its axis. 

If it weren’t for the desperate incantation, whispering in the silence, Magpie would have thought he had lost and gone and died. His vision was surrounded by a soft kind of blue, the very same light that seemed to hold the alien still. 

Everyone else, though, seemed frozen by fear and shock, piled up to the wall, hidden behind stacks of paper. Spot and Racetrack were crouched behind one, Mush and Blink the other, the former putting himself between loved one and danger. Boots was on his knees not far, poised like a cat ready to leap and claw. 

Only Wiccan was moving, breathing hard, hands outstretched to cast the same blue glow at his direction as he prayed to a secret god, “Stoptransforming,stoptransforming,stoptransforming,stoptransforming,stoptransforming…” Begging to be heard, begging to be answered, begging for the creature to stop transforming. 

For Magpie to move, a plea painted excruciatingly on his eyes when they met. 

Magpie pushed himself up and slammed his hand onto Jake’s frozen shoulder, upsetting its uneasy balance. Gasps stirred the air, Wiccan persisted with his chant and Boots shifted. 

Now the tables had turned, and it was Magpie who mounted the helpless alien, spinning his blade in his right. “Here’s the thing,” he said to it. “The bad news is that this is going to hurt like a mother. The good news is: I’m going to give you three seconds to anticipate the pain.” Three. 

“Magpie, don’t do it!” 

Two. 

“Trust me,” Magpie raised his knife over his shoulder, “I know what I’m doing.”

One.


	11. Chapter 11

This was how a second life felt like, then: 

Head spinning from a lack of oxygen. 

Teeth ringing from the grinding. 

Throat parched from the fever that coursed through his veins. 

Hands sticky with blood and sweat. 

The stench of blood bathing him in a damning perfume. 

Every breath taken was both a pain and a relief—for his battered lungs, his raw throat and his desperate head. He felt sick in his guts, and hungry but too sick to take in anything. Empty, wasted, but alive. Alive. 

As for the other… 

“You killed him.”

_Monster_ , they may as well have called him. Good to know some things never change. 

His eyes flew open, still damp from the heat of the battle, the spatter of crimson violence. He was still catching his breath, still riding his heart and his head still swam in the very blood he knelt in. 

After he’d plunged the knife through Jake’s chest, the shock of his actions had startled Wiccan from his magic and electrified the creature back into life. It was just Magpie’s luck that he had delivered a mortal blow while he still had the chance. The alien was by no means down for the count, fighting to retaliate, throwing the other to the floor so it could bear down on him but Magpie raised a hand to block its strangling tentacles, entwined his forearms around both lengths as though they were a pair of reins and dragged them out of the way as he pulled it back to the floor so he could stab its constricted windpipe next. It would have been so easy to finish it right then and there—tear open its jugular, split its misshapen skull wide open. 

But Magpie couldn’t. Unfortunately, he was also infected by the disease of humanity. 

He shook his head, gazing down at the wheezing carcass beneath him. “No,” he rasped. “The broodling in him would never let him die so easily.” He breathed. “It needs a host, and for as long as the host is still alive, it’s trapped. It has no choice but to hang onto him, make the best out of a bloody situation.” So this was what Captain America was saying—broodlings dressed as people, people dressed as broodlings…

In the end, Magpie resulted to pummeling its stomach wound, forcing out spills of blood until even an alien must be too weakened to fight. It had been such an easy thing to do then, when his enemy was still an inhuman predator. 

But with the broodling growing weaker, so were its telltale features disappearing. So that Jake was now regaining possession of his physicality, and the fear and the trauma were clearer now in his boyish eyes than it ever was when Magpie was killing him. Imagine being trapped in a nightmare, only to wake up and find that it was a lot worse than you could ever realize. 

Magpie couldn’t. But he would have to live with the memory of Jake’s horror, those eyes asking him what he had done. Why he had done it. 

“Call Stark.” Kelly, the voice of reason, as always. “We need to get him to the hospital now.” 

“Everyone, back to your rooms, all of you!” He’d never heard Davey’s voice ring so loudly in the past. “This is a Code Blue, you know what that means.”

“Magpie.”

Magpie looked up to see Boots shaking him, urging him to his feet. 

“Get up. We need to stop him from bleeding away. Get up. Mush,” he turned back to the man pushing Blink out to the lobby in spite of the stubborn man’s irritated refusal, “get me clean towels, every clean towel you can get your hands on.” Mush nodded, stumbling past fallen stacks of paper but spinning back to where he started when Blink pulled at his arm. 

“And now you’re taking orders from him?” Blink protested, his voice strung high and his visible eye wild with terror. “What the hell’s going on, Mush?!” 

“M’Shaka,” Boots again, nodding the poor Mush to the direction of the door filling up with escaping newsies, “go. We can’t lose him.”

“What the hell was that?” Blink demanded of Boots who got up to meet him in the eye. Mush took that opportunity then to run off. “Speak English, this isn’t the time to play games!” 

Was it not English? If it had been in a different language, how could Magpie have understood what he’d just said? 

“There are things in this world that you cannot understand yet,” Boots responded evenly to the distressed Blink, in a language that the poor man understood. “In time, Mush will be free to explain them to you but that time is not yet now. You have to go.”

“And who are you to make me, huh?!” Blink charged at him with one step but Boots held his position. “Even Iron Man couldn’t make me move—” 

“Move,” Boots said, “or you will be moved.”

Blink stared at him, then, at his stoic stance, his unflinching face. 

A stalemate broken by the command, “MakeBlinkgo.”

Blink was off, running in a heartbeat. 

Both Magpie and Boots turned then to the magician following Blink’s departure with his glowing hands. Boots nodded to him his thanks. 

Wiccan nodded back, looking a little less certain. He turned to Magpie then, giving him his own nod. “Everything okay?” he asked again. 

What else could he do, but nod, as well? 

Mush had returned just then, spilling with towels, Racetrack and Spot in tow, carrying their own. 

They laid them down next to the quaking Jake under Boots’ guidance. By then, half the room had been evacuated. Crutchie was on the phone with who Magpie presumed was Stark, Kelly was still shepherding his newsies out. Davey had gone to do something else important. 

“What the hell happened?” Spot. 

“I don’t know,” Racetrack said. “I don’t know what’s going on with Jake either. I thought he was acting kinda funny this late but…” Delancey himself wasn’t always so violent. 

His blood test came up with an anomaly but it was probably nothing serious. 

“Oh God,” Magpie whispered, drawing all eyes to him. “They should have run him over when they still had the chance!” 

“Magpie?” The alarm was clear on Wiccan’s face but he was trapped with the task of ensuring Jake’s survival with the use of his magic. 

There was nothing he could do then to stop Magpie when he ran off, ignoring everyone else who beckoned for him to come back.

* * *

The truth of the matter, of course, was that he didn’t know what he was doing, or where he was going. 

Which was to say, he did. He knew he had to find Delancey, he knew he had to kill him before he could transform, and kill and turn others but Manhattan was so huge, he didn’t always know where he was going. Perhaps, in some distant past, he had but he could neither remember it anymore nor count on it to return to him at this crucial moment. 

Getting out of the mansion and into the heart of the borough was one thing. Getting around from there, finding his way between buildings and streets and people hurrying here and there in thinly-veiled panic, making a decision—hospital or Delancey’s mansion—was another. It was easier to sympathize with the headless chicken although it at least didn’t have the fate of the world balancing on its wings. 

Magpie had looked left and right, and just as soon decided to sprint to the left when the horn of a classic Harley-Davidson pulled him back to the right. 

The actual vehicle was nothing as impressive, of course, only built as it was from various cannibalized parts of a motorbike but it worked. 

Magpie never expected to be followed so soon but there was Spot, hands on the ape bars and Racetrack behind him, getting out from the back. “What are you doing?” he roared, marching to the other brunette jogging to him. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“The entire network is in Code Blue. No one’s supposed to be out here,” Racetrack snapped back. “We’re here to bring you back with us!”

“Go back to the mansion!” Magpie slashed the air with his knife, pointing to where they came from while he approached, making Racetrack hesitate, pulling Spot out of the safety of his bike. “Get out of here!” 

There was a scream and a crash that brought him whirling back around. A woman was on the ground, gaping at a large insectoid which had pinned an elderly man in a uniform to the ground. His own yelling faded as the alien took off into the air with him. 

“ _No!!_ ” Magpie gave chase but it was too late. 

A full-scale mayhem had been set onto the city, with several of the winged predators dropping onto cars and pavements, all to make their game scream and run only to block their escape with another of their kind. Many of them had fallen to the broodlings’ tentacles, taken away if not straight up murdered by the two-pronged stingers on their tails. 

Magpie couldn’t save them all. He might as well save those he still can. 

He turned just in time to see a broodling, zooming down, aiming for the stunned Spot who might have been captured by its tentacles if Magpie hadn’t jumped in time to shove him away from the motorbike which replaced him in his fate instead. Racetrack stumbled to their side at the ground. 

They watched the broodling drop his precious ride onto the road, causing a speeding car to skid and crash into another. 

Magpie huffed at the close call. “So much for a hobby.” He pushed himself up to his feet, pulling Spot and Racetrack up their own, the knife gone from his hand, lost somewhere. “We really ought to stop meeting like this, Spot. C’mon, we have to go, we’re not safe here. Up on your feet, c’mon, let’s go!!” 

He led the way out to safety, running farther from the mansion which Racetrack wanted them to go back to but it was compromised in Magpie’s eyes so he refused to reconsider. Delancey himself was promptly forgotten—it was probably too late for him, anyway, he was probably already one of them— 

“ _Magpie!!_ ” 

Spot’s cry brought Magpie out of his thoughts and back into the war zone, with its discordant music of human cries, alien shrieking, an inhuman roar, bullets and things exploding and metal skidding suspiciously towards his position. 

He whirled in time to see the flat top of a police car racing to him, the whole thing upended on its side scraping at the concrete. Magpie held his position then, waving for his two friends to stay back. “Get behind me!” he cried, bracing himself. 

He slammed onto the roof of the car, meeting it with the muscle of his right arm, pushing against it even as it pushed him back, his planted feet useless against its force. He was sliding despite his best efforts, quickly losing ground, Spot and Racetrack crying and stumbling away for their lives. 

There was about a foot or so to spare before the vehicle could crush them all between its weight and the wall behind them. But the momentum had died before then, and Magpie simply had to shove it back to send it crashing down its own tires, saving them all from a rather gruesome ending. He breathed deeply, staring at the car. He’d never been able to sustain something that heavy for that long. 

A brief respite cut short by yet another crash, one more of so many others. Racetrack and Spot yelped. 

Magpie fell to his knee, glaring up to the broodling leering menacingly at him from the flattened police car, putting some knives in his hands. 

“Hello, little prince,” it rasped, reaching down with his tentacles as he prepared to cut. 

And then it was gone, dispatched by a heavy disk that seemed to glimmer in the sun. The silence was astounding. 

Another crash again, but this time the weight that had landed on the crushed car was dressed in blue, covered all over reaching for the shield that came spinning back to its master. 

“Captain!” 

Captain America nodded to Spot gaping up at him. “Good to see you again, Spot. You two okay?” 

Looking down to Magpie getting up his feet, he asked the same, “You okay, kid?” 

Magpie shrugged. “I’m still alive.”

Captain America smiled a little. “Stay that way.” He snapped to his right suddenly and slammed his shield onto a broodling attempting to grab him. “Get yourselves out of here, get under cover!” 

“Roger that,” Spot breathed, grabbing Magpie by the arm to drag him back to their escape route. “C’mon, let’s get us out of here!” 

“Thanks, Cap!” Racetrack called, waving to the Avenger lifting him a tiny salute before he disappeared with his friends behind an alley.

* * *

They had the rare fortune of gaining Spider-Man’s protection briefly but that flew out the window, almost literally, when a broodling came barreling out of one, straight into the startled web slinger. Left on their own, the escaping newsboys found themselves lost without a guide. 

Until Magpie took over, although his idea of a sanctuary was not exactly in accordance to Spot’s high standards. 

“We’re supposed to be taking cover,” Spot protested, ignored as Magpie spun around the empty lot, catching his breath, scanning for pursuit. He pointed to the naked skies above them. “This isn’t cover!” 

“If you had a better idea, then you should have taken the lead earlier,” Magpie snapped back, whirling at the shorter one. “If you want cover,” he pointed at the empty convenience store at the side of the defunct pumping station, “that’s cover. If you get picked out like fish in a barrel, don’t,” he warned a wide-eyed Spot with a finger, “blame me.”

“Can you two stop it?” Racetrack snarled, shoving both of them apart and giving each of them an eye. “There’s no time to fight. Look, Spot, Magpie got us out of their track—” 

“Not for long,” Magpie breathed, shaking his head, keeping his squinted eyes trained to where they’d come from. “We can’t stay here, they’ll catch up soon enough.”

“I know a place,” Spot revealed, catching Magpie’s attention. “It’s a long ways from here but it’s safe,” he glanced both at him and Racetrack, “I can vouch that much.”

“Where is it?” 

Spot threw his hand over his shoulder, “It’s in Brooklyn—” Magpie shook his head and turned away. “It’s one-two hours on foot, we can make it!”

“Right now is not a good time,” Magpie insisted, facing his friends again. “It’s still too hot. If Manhattan is already under attack, there’s a good chance Brooklyn is no longer safe. We need another temporary shelter.”

“Spot would know how to get us there safely,” Racetrack piped in, glancing at his boyfriend who nodded in support of his words. He turned back to Magpie. “We’ll take the backstreets, the tight spots, and then,” he pointed to Magpie’s hand, “you could lend us some of your knives. You’re holding three right now.”

“What knives?” Magpie whispered, raising his hand to see what Racetrack was saying. There were three blades, of course, each of a shape that reminded him of a narrow diamond with one point stretched out, elongated, its hilt shaped slenderly, so thin and so light! 

But the edge was formidable, he could see it from the way it caught the light, the white sparkle that lined his blades. He’d never seen anything like it. 

Ever. 

He turned, half-stunned, to his two companions, watching him strangely. “These aren’t mine…” In the end, it didn’t matter. 

A sudden screech in the air sent the three flying down to the ground, head under fists, anticipating an aerial attack that never came. Except in the form of sharp, persistent noises, angrier and louder by the minute. 

Magpie would never have imagined a day where he would reject the mutt he so lovingly named as a pet. And yet there he was, whirling to meet the mongrel dashing from the abandoned store, eyes wide with alarm as he snarled to him, “Thori! Stop!” and shushed him, appealing to him to stop but he didn’t. 

Like the little hellhound that he was, he only barked harder and fiercer. 

“Magpie, shut it up!” Spot cried, pushing Racetrack behind him. 

“Thori, stop,” Magpie kept trying, hoping to ease the rebellious dog with his bloody hands. “Not now, please, I’m begging you. This isn’t a good time!” 

Too late. Two thuds echoed out in the emptiness, with the flutter of gossamer wings and a sharp, thin scraping on the ground, just over Magpie’s shoulders. Thori’s ire immediately turned the dog to them, but he stayed put, the poor, brave, simple thing. 

Magpie could see by the gapes and the stares, the pale looks on Spot’s and Racetrack’s faces that the worst of his fears had been realized. He turned around slowly, coming face to face with the blasted alien creatures who bared their fangs upon meeting their prey. For what it was worth, it was getting much easier to put on a brave face in front of them now. 

He was starting to get tired of them. 

Magpie drew out a long piece of steel from his back, coming between their hunters and his two friends. They watched him, and he watched their every move, every twitch of their tentacle or the thin wings over their backs, the corners of their too-bright grins. 

“Stand down, creatures,” he warned them, tightening his grip around his blade, fighting off the shake in his hand. “Or you may yet survive this.”

“The little prince thinks himself a man,” one of them hissed, swaying closer. Magpie stopped suddenly to prepare his feet to jump. “When did you learn to grow a spine?” 

“Oh,” Magpie smirked, swallowing down the quiver in his voice, “you wouldn’t want to know what else I’d learned.”

“Why not?” He thought the broodling had started to laugh as it bent itself lower for a lunge. “Why don’t you tell _usssss_?” 

Like the hiss of a rattlesnake, it seemed to go on. Magpie had barely caught sight of the shadows swooping before he saw them landing—four broodlings flanking the initial two. Magpie jumped back in shock. Six of them all of a sudden. 

He couldn’t win—but gods damn if he lost to them! After all that he’d suffered through. If this was the day the devil finally took him down, he would kill the devil himself and claw his way back out of hell to raise it over these blasted beings! 

He only had a second to reconsider his position. The entire axis of his very place in the world seemed to tilt come the next when the first broodling charged for him only to disappear under the empty signage of the old pumping station. There was an embarrassing moment where he could only gape and stare at the murder at his feet, ignorant to the shrieks and the stirrings of the broodlings who’d witnessed the death, turning to see who was responsible. 

Someone dressed in red, with hair that flew like static to her scarlet magic that looked like synapses woven in and out of her hands as she warned them, “Back off.” She was the perfect distraction to her surprise companion taking his spot at the back of the fight. 

One who would jump in in what was otherwise known as the _superhero landing_ , with his feet set apart, his fists obscured by a cold blue light that matched the one illuminating his eyes as he gazed up. Magpie never thought he would one day be happier to see him over his shoulder. 

“Wiccan!” 

Wiccan spared him a bright smile, contested only by the energy emanating from him. “Everything okay, Magpie?” 

This time, Magpie gave him a resounding yes of a nod. 

“Wiccan,” the Scarlet Witch called. He looked up then to meet her own glowing eyes as she asked him, “Ready?” 

Wiccan nodded. 

With a downward strike of both his hands, Wiccan took off to the skies while the Scarlet Witch trapped one broodling into the web of her spell and slammed it straight into the other one. The rest she missed when they flew up to meet the younger magician in the air who charged at them with two blows shooting off from his very hands, popping with electricity. The unlucky victims disintegrated from the power. 

The other two, he took on a merry chase in the skies as he pulled them away from the Scarlet Witch’s perimeter, now filled suddenly with reinforcements attracted to the battle like moths to a light. Half of their refreshed numbers burst out in a crimson web. 

Amidst it all, Magpie grabbed the opportunity to seek shelter, dragging Racetrack and Spot with him until they jumped right at the back of a useless pumping machine before one of Wiccan’s misguided energy projections blasted them off from existence. They were no better now than mice trapped between the war of two worlds, curling up in the middle of explosions left and right. 

Magpie couldn’t say he didn’t like it. As soon as he was able, he would peer out from behind their flimsy protection despite Spot and Racetrack’s protests and grabbing hands to gawk at the Scarlet Witch orchestrating an entire battle from the strings of her spells alone, and at Wiccan cruising over the skies like some new age god in a mission to cleanse the world. Caught in their trap, the broodlings were no match to their power, which pulled them apart and flung them and crushed them and sent them off flying to oblivion depending on the whims of the spellcaster. 

But the broodlings’ strength had always laid at the strength of their hive, and their hive was as strong and as plentiful as ever. 

A flying broodling crashed into their hiding spot and forced them back out into the open, scrambling for the closest barricade they could find—an upended pumping machine where Magpie and Racetrack had once sat, watching the absent Thori chasing his peanut butter cups, proving once again that even at the end of their lives, a stray animal would be much wiser than a group of humans. 

“If we don’t get out of here,” Spot roared over the blast of Wiccan’s spell landing on earth, “we’re never gonna make it!” Unfortunately for Magpie, he knew he was right. If they didn’t move now, they would become nothing more than numbers among statistics, another landfill in probably New York’s latest mass grave. The convenience store was probably their best shot at life. 

But before they could make it, they would need to tear across no man’s land. 

Magpie whistled, looking up to the skies where Wiccan flew. “The moment we get out there, we’re going to be fresh meat. They’ll charge at us, causing a distraction for Wiccan and the Scarlet Witch, ripping their guards wide open for others to attack.” He ducked momentarily when a red streak blew overhead. 

“Time to take that much-needed cover, then. Spot,” he called the man’s attention, shifting himself on his knee, “you’re the fastest runner. You’ll take the lead and Race and I will follow. Race,” eyes on the other brunette, “stay in the middle. I’ll watch the rear.”

“That’s the plan?” Racetrack protested. 

“Don’t worry,” Magpie said, producing a set of throwing knives from the inside of his coat, their weight familiar in his hands. “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeves.” He winked. 

He glanced up, waited for the skies to clear up. With a cry of, “Go!” he flew up to his feet and pushed everyone off to a mad sprint. 

Spot took off with a great lead, unable to keep his hand away from grabbing Racetrack which anyway, thought Magpie, was all well and good. It would be one thing to be separated from both non-fighters but it would be an entirely different matter if they were to be separated from each other. Magpie wouldn’t be able to protect them both at once and Wiccan and the Scarlet Witch had bigger fish to fry. 

By running together, they at least became a single unit for the broodlings to pursue. 

That made it so much easier for Magpie to take them down—three knives tearing past two pairs of wings in the skies, so small, the aliens could have easily fought them off. 

Unfortunately for them, science and gravity held a greater sway at things. The harder they beat their wings, the wider the holes tore themselves. Funny to think that the same law that took down kites and balloons applied to these demons. 

Magpie let out a mighty grunt when the crash of two broodlings came too close to him with a burst of concrete, shielding his eyes. Two more knives appeared in his hand and these ones, he threw to a broodling coming at him, one for each eye. None of what he was doing would have a lasting and drastic effect on the battle but for the most part, they gave him and his friends one more extra second, one more extra step they needed to reach their sanctuary. 

He stopped just before the open door to deliver a well-aimed punch up the neck of another blinded broodling before he grabbed it by its tentacle and flung it outward to share a bloody blast with another one of its siblings. Racetrack called his attention, just as he was about to duck in. 

Three broodlings darted for him, diving in from the skies. 

He slipped his hand inside his outer pocket, reproducing the strange knives he’d picked up earlier. 

With a tight whirl, he cast them out to the creatures in flight, jumping out of the way with a cry just as one of them came barreling down the earth, carried off by a blue light to face Wiccan’s wrath, just as another broodling was charging for him. These ones, Magpie fed all four knives to, practically shattering its wings. His belt felt incredibly light, each sheath bouncing and swaying with the uneasy feeling of emptiness, but the broodlings were persistent with their hunger and Magpie needed more knives and so they kept coming. Where exactly he was getting them from was neither here nor there at the moment. 

His arms were starting to ache, what with all the swinging and the punching and the throwing he was doing but he couldn’t stop, not when he had to stand guard over Spot and Racetrack, not even when his aim was already missing more than a few marks than was comfortable. Even Wiccan himself was slowing down, cornered to the defensive more and more often, the magic petering in his hands. 

“Wiccan,” Scarlet Witch’s voice ringing over the fresh sound of another broodling’s death in her hands. “Take cover!”

Wiccan landed next to Magpie and practically punched Magpie into the empty store. Himself, he braced against the doorway, eyes screwed tight, arms and lights out like a human shield. 

“Wiccan,” Magpie scrambled to his feet, racing for his friend, “what the hell—?!” 

The Scarlet Witch’s piercing cry burst out, a wave of crimson light throwing them off their feet, Wiccan slamming into Magpie. 

He crashed onto the tiles, shattering them with their weight, bouncing and rolling towards Spot and Racetrack’s positions before the momentum died and Magpie could push the coughing Wiccan off him to the ground, wheezing, “Wiccan?!” 

“Shit man,” Spot appeared next to him, phone out but discarded in the face of their groaning friend. “Don’t die on me. Hulkling is going to smash me if you get yourself killed!” From the phone, a persistent voice was demanding to know what was going on. 

“Don’t worry,” Wiccan coughed, eyes squeezed tight. “I think Magpie just saved my nose. There will be no smashing for now.” More coughing. Despite that, Magpie was sighing in relief. “What the hell are you made of, Magpie? Are you sure you’re not an Avenger?” 

“You’re asking the wrong person, Wiccan,” Magpie chuckled. “And you lied to me! I thought you only knew a few party tricks?”

“We’ve got a confirmation,” Racetrack entered the scene, his own Starkphone out with the view of a map and a location pin. “Falcon and company are coming for us.”

As soon as Wiccan could stand, they hurried out the building whose walls seemed to have caved in from the blast. The battlefield had regained some semblance of its prior emptiness only this time, it was littered with the broken pieces of what once made up the enemy known as the Brood. 

And in the middle of the bombsite was Scarlet Witch herself, on her knees, swaying from weakness but otherwise, unscathed. 

Magpie felt a tremor run through his skin at the sheer idea of her powers. Wiccan raced to her side, calling her, “Wanda!” while he shook her by the shoulder. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear his dog barking. 

“Wanda, they’re coming for us,” he said. “Falcon and the others.”

“How long?” she moaned but there was a slur in her voice. 

“Uhh…” Racetrack consulted his phone, “a minute and a half.”

“Go to the safehouse,” the Scarlet Witch said, grasping Wiccan’s grip on her shoulder. “Take them with you.”

“No!” Wiccan shook his head. “If I leave you here—” 

“The Avengers are coming,” she persisted. “And this isn’t your mission. Don’t lose sight of it.” 

Wiccan glanced nervously back at Magpie. 

“Go,” the Scarlet Witch pushed on, prying his fingers from her sleeve. “I’ll be fine. They’ll be here any moment.”

“Okay,” Wiccan whispered, rising off his feet but slowly, too slowly until the Scarlet Witch waved him off. 

“Go!” 

There was an almost physical kind of pain in Wiccan’s face when he turned back to the others, meeting them all in the eye. “Okay, link hands,” he offered his own to Racetrack and Magpie, “and whatever you do: don’t. Freak. Out.” He looked at each of them in turn. 

Magpie, the last and longest. 

He closed his eyes, then, gripping their fingers tighter. “Everybodytothesafehouse!” In the blink of an eye, they were gone.


	12. Chapter 12

Out of the chaos and straight into the heart of another. 

This, at least, Magpie could make some sense of, despite the initial shock of reappearing in a dilapidated house—with skewed beams and gnawed surfaces, as if a giant wolf had just chomped at it from above and then set it on fire. The place was dark, as could be expected, and groaned with every movement that burdened it. And this was what frightened the still-shocked children, and made the older ones uneasy. 

But there was an opening at the foot of a wall, like some patch blown open, and this was where a woman with long, fine hair was leading everyone to. “Keep an eye and a hand on your buddy! Don’t rush…” He thought she looked familiar, but at the moment, Magpie couldn’t put a name to her face. 

The entire room, which must once have been built by several other rooms until the walls were taken down and-or stolen, was filled by a long line of young faces waiting to get through the hatch. 

Racetrack was suddenly bursting with names and jumping out of their tightly knit group to throw himself onto another that whirled and roared back his name in celebration. Magpie had never met them his whole life—or at least that part he could remember. 

He stepped back to look at Spot, smiling coolly and waving to some people over at the front despite the horror he just survived. He couldn’t move, what with Wiccan clinging to his arm for support, eyes shut tight with concentration. Or sickness. Or both. “Is this Brooklyn?” he asked. 

Spot nodded, smirking at Magpie. “Welcome to the Brooklyn Safehouse. Not so bad for a shelter, huh?” 

“Uh,” Magpie lifted a brow, “I could ask for better?” 

“Relax.” Spot waved the concern off his face. Just then, Wiccan resurfaced to them with a soft gasp, glowing eyes wide open. “Wait ‘til you go under. Well?” He turned to Wiccan. 

“She’s safe,” Wiccan breathed, pressing hard on his forehead. “She’s with Vision. And Falcon and Thor.”

Thor. Was there any other name who could bring such an immediate smile to Magpie’s face? 

A sudden thud brought a wave of gasps and shrieks that was silenced as soon as they came up. A smattering of laughter followed closely along with a sparse applause. 

About the only one who seemed permanently electrified by this development was Wiccan who muttered, “Teddy,” and was soon pushing his way out of Spot and Magpie and anyone else who might be unfortunate enough to get in the magician’s way. “ _Teddy!!_ ” 

Teddy turned out to be a giant version of a man, in gamma radiation green but was otherwise too small for the Hulk and had wings besides. He’d landed through a chasm in the roof, bearing two children, one in each muscular arm that set them down on their feet. 

Just in time to wrap them around Wiccan who threw himself to his bulk, sobbing his name in great relief. Teddy buried his face in his hair, holding him closely. 

“Huh. So he’s the boyfriend,” Magpie observed. 

Spot nodded. “Until Wiccan moved to Manhattan, you could hardly separate them both. Hulkling’s not from around here,” he raised his hand to wave, “but I don’t think he’s in a hurry to go back.”

Hulkling responded to the gesture in kind, cheek still pressed to Wiccan’s head. And then he would pull them apart to look at the smaller man closely, inspecting every inch of him while Wiccan did the same, brushing back his blond hair, sniffling. He had very handsome eyes, Magpie thought. 

Later, when Spot was pulled away by the duties of a captain gone too long from his charges, and Wiccan and Hulkling had gone on a few search and rescue missions of their own, Magpie found himself in Racetrack’s constant company. Before that, he’d been hanging around on his own, back and foot to the wall, waiting for the line to diminish before he went down this secret shelter himself.Racetrack teased him for being shy while he agreed that he wasn’t certain his brand of mischief was welcome among these folks yet. 

What he wasn’t saying, of course, was how he had been remembering the feel of those diamond blades in his fingers, how they flew from him, both curious to try again and scared to know if he might succeed. 

The safehouse, to Magpie’s surprise, turned out to be less like a glorified steel box as he’d been imagining going down the hatch, and more like the full-blown bridge of a luxury liner in space. The center of the room was like a sunken pool where everyone was gathered in rows and columns, accessible by six sets of stairs from all four sides. Screens were installed overhead to serve as a window to the world outside, one in-between each tunnel that branched out presumably to more rooms and more levels. Even without the characteristic Stark aesthetics—silver panels, blue lights—the whole machination of the safehouse felt like the man himself was in their midst. 

The whole thing was, perhaps to say the very least, impressive, even breathtaking for those who might not yet be too numbed by the shock. It was easier to take it all in from Magpie’s perspective atop one of the stairs, where he’d broken away from his line to observe. The whole place operated like ants, with thin tendrils leading in from other entrances and spreading out from the pool into the gaping corridors, following the lead of voices, of people posted by passageways or those who walked among the columns. “Boys to the left wing, girls to the right,” one of them would be heard crying with her characteristic loudness as she waded across the pool. “Stay with your buddy. If you need anything, approach your assigned RA with your buddy.”

Magpie picked her out easily in the crowd—he could tell her by those long wavy locks, those high shoulders, those heeled boots, even if he were standing on Saturn. They were BFFs, after all. He descended step by step, keeping an eye on her snappy movements while she went over her reminders tirelessly in spite of the shock blankets hung over her arm and the tray of cups she held aloft. 

“Boys to the left wing, girls to the right,” she repeated, and then softly, to the woman who approached her to take her tray, she asked, “You okay, baby?” 

Her baby nodded, smiling sweetly in spite of the fatigue around her eyes. She was the one he’d seen guiding the line down the hatch when he arrived at the safehouse. He recognized her then, finally, when he saw her with her girlfriend who reached up to take her cheek. Sarah Jacobs. Of the Davey and Les Jacobs fame. 

Sarah ducked out soon after to attend to others. Katherine resumed her script. “Stay with your buddy! If you need anything, approach your RA with your buddy. Yes, Mr. Stark!” She dipped her head suddenly, speaking privately to the hidden device in her ear, pressing it closer. “Yes, Sir, the Slumber Party Protocol is well underway. We’re still looking for a few strays but we have Hulkling and Wiccan on the job. Noted, we’ll keep an eye out for them. You take care of yourself there, too.” It was a quick call. She straightened up soon after and started shouting out, “Shock blankets! Who needs a shock blanket!”

“Liar,” Magpie called her, with a voice so quiet. 

And yet it was enough to pull her around and stare at the smirking man at the foot of the stairs, as if she’d seen a ghost, or been called something less, more hurtful. He thought she looked pale all of a sudden. 

“Magpie!” she cried, dressing herself with cheerfulness but that was the extent of her delight. What more she could have given had already been doused by Magpie who’d finally understood her true identity in spite of her various cover-ups. 

Still the smile on her face remained when she approached him in an effort to bring things back to some semblance of normal between them. They were BFFs, after all. 

And BFFs never lied to each other. Magpie’s knowing smile echoed the thought, reminding Katherine of how she had brought them both into this standoff. Something almost akin perhaps to triumph. 

Guilt became her, then, dimming what little joy she still had for finding her friend. She reached out to him, and took his long fingers into hers, squeezing them, hoping she would be forgiven for her decision.

But that was all. Magpie’s smirk persisted as he watched her, closely. It was clear now that this would leave a scar on their history forever. 

Katherine let go soon after, accepting her mistake, blushing in embarrassment. She stepped past him without so much as a goodbye, resuming her helpful reminders.

* * *

Later in the day, a select few of the Avengers came and went, some staying long enough only to see the place, others lingering to rest, recuperate, await for others. Iron Man, Captain America, that one they called the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Vision, the Scarlet Witch. 

She came back to return Hulkling and Wiccan who’d been out in the field for too long. There was another hasty, slightly heated discussion between the two magicians before the Avengers ducked into a secret room but it was clear that Wiccan was only fighting for fighting’s sake. He could stand only with Hulkling’s help, and Hulkling himself could use a little breather. 

“Has she gone?” Wiccan asked Magpie the moment he stepped through the accordion wall, a flimsy excuse for privacy in an otherwise full medical ward. The younger brunette sat at the side of his bed, dressed only in his shirt and jeans, feet dangling. His red jacket clung lazily to the foot of his mattress. 

Magpie moved it as he took its place, propping up one leg to sit. He never noticed how frayed the train of his coat had been until then. 

Wiccan sighed, gazing down at his empty hands. “She’ll leave again.”

“What do you expect?” Magpie chuckled quietly. “The Scarlet Witch is an Avenger. And you’re…” he gestured to him. “Not.”

“And are you?” Wiccan argued. “When you attacked Jake, when you protected Spot and Race, did you do those because you were an Avenger?” 

“Do you think I had a choice?” Magpie hissed, moving closer. “I couldn’t just stand idly by, fretting while Jake kills me or the Brood takes Spot and Race!” 

“That’s my point. We didn’t have a choice,” Wiccan sulked. 

Magpie curled his brows. “What?” 

Wiccan sighed, shoulders falling. “There’s something special about you, Magpie. You’re strong, you’re fast, you can throw those knives like it’s nobody’s business, you heal fast, you can take a blast without breaking yourself…” He shook his head. “I just don’t know what it is,” he turned to the quiet Magpie, “and I guess neither do you. 

“Me?” Wiccan turned to his hands again, bringing back the light he once wore like a pair of fighting gloves. “There’s something special about me, too. But I’m not an Avenger. But I don’t _have_ to be an Avenger to use them to help others, do I?” He looked at Magpie, asking and not asking him. “I have these powers. I can…I can control things, I can blast them, I can fly, I can find people, I can read minds…”

Magpie maintained his silence, waiting for Wiccan to continue. 

“Cap was the one who told me,” he went on, “that if you have something special, you have to use it to help others. He told me that when I met him in the Brooklyn house. Wanda was the one who put me there, after she found me using my powers against some nazis. It was in a BLM rally. Ever since, she’s been my mentor. I wouldn’t be this good yet if it weren’t for her.”

“What about your parents? Your family?” Magpie asked. 

“Killed in a Hydra attack,” Wiccan said, smiling sadly at his friend. “But that’s just a cover up. They did attack us but I managed to teleport us away before they could kill any of us. I think because of what I did, they got on Hydra’s radar. I asked the Avengers to hide them, and they agreed.”

“That’s,” Magpie’s brows rose, “awfully kind of them.” He paused briefly. “So…they’re still alive.”

Wiccan nodded. “We meet time and again but it’s not the same. And my brothers are still traumatized by what happened. By me…” His voice fell. 

“This country isn’t kind to us jews,” he went on after a beat. “And I keep thinking…if I’d already been this powerful before, we wouldn’t have had to run away, and my brothers wouldn’t have to be scared for their lives now. And I would have been able to stop…so many killings. So many senseless shootings.”

“If you’d already been that powerful then, I doubt they would have sent _just_ those Hydra agents after you,” Magpie said. 

Wiccan smiled slightly. “Every superhero needs a sob story, I guess.”

Magpie chuckled. “Not everyone.”

Wiccan looked at him. “You have one. You just don’t know it.”

“Can’t remember,” Magpie said, leaning sideways on the heel of his palm. “Maybe that’s my sob story. My sob story is that I can’t remember my sob story.”

“You might just turn out to be the greatest Avenger of them all,” Wiccan laughed, just as the accordion wall slid open, the newcomer apologizing for being late. 

“Man, these doctors really take their time—” He stopped at the scene laid out before him, with Magpie leaning towards Wiccan, Wiccan smiling. 

Wiccan straightened up, and Magpie swore he could see a sparkle in his eyes that shone brighter than his own magic. He looked again at the suspecting visitor. 

If it hadn’t been for his eyes and the way he wore his blond hair, Magpie would have never recognized him as Hulkling. Without his big green muscles, he thought he looked like a regular kind of guy. Turns out love really was blind. 

“Teddy,” Wiccan said, sounding brighter than he had when he and Magpie were speaking privately. “I want you to meet my friend, Magpie. We met in Manhattan.”

“How do you do?” Magpie greeted, swooping up to his feet to offer a hand to Hulkling who seemed to eye him with less cordiality. Earlier, before he and Wiccan took off to search for strays, the man had caught his boyfriend holding Magpie’s hands, ridding them, his face, his clothes of the blood that had clung to them from his morning murder. He figured that was where all this distrust was coming from. 

For what it was worth, he thought he might do something to thaw the situation. “Your boyfriend has denied me a great many things on account of you. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking,” he squeezed an eye shut, looking up the white lit panels. “A box of muffins.”

“Really, Magpie?” Wiccan crossed his arms. “You know, for a guy who can’t remember anything, you certainly know how to hold grudges.”

“I was sick, then!” 

“Magpie…just Magpie?” Hulkling drew his attention back to him. He still hadn’t taken his hand to shake. 

Magpie retrieved it, waving it as though it had been scorched. “I’m still undecided. There’s lots of great names on the table right now—Tony, Steve, Peter’s on the rise. But who knows?” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll end up calling myself Magpie T’Challa Strange. It’s all up in the air. Anyway,” he waved it off said air, “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”

Turning to Wiccan, he gave him a little smile. “I’ll let you know when she leaves.”

Wiccan offered him a look of gratitude. 

Hulkling only nodded to him when he passed him en route his exit. Magpie started to pull the wall shut. 

Through the tiny crack, he watched Hulkling take his place, catching Wiccan’s hands when it flew to his. What a sweet sight to behold. 

Every superhero needed a sob story, but at least Wiccan had a love story, too. 

Him? He didn’t even have a story to begin with.

* * *

If only they could have let him stay hidden for a little longer. 

Despite the weight of Wiccan’s scars and frustrations, that brief escape in the ward had allowed Magpie to breathe. Until then, he had been hanging loosely with Racetrack—him being the only available acquaintance—and smiling politely when it was appropriate but he kept his guard up the whole time, and the walls were getting higher, and heavier for him to carry and breathe in. This was not him. This anxiety, this paranoia was not him—but what he was was a survivor, who was alive now only because of his instincts. And his instincts told him to mistrust strange faces, who turned to watch him every time he passed. And to be wary of this foreign place which was supposed to protect him from the outside and keep him in, as well. 

In the end, he cut himself loose. The reminders were to stay with a buddy at all times but this was the same group of people who tried to murder him. Three times. He was done following orders. 

He was done playing the victim card. 

After hours and hours spent going around and around the place under the protection of shadows and blind spots, Magpie finally found his way out into the night. The gutted remains of the old house above, almost black with darkness, turned out to provide him the best kind of sanctuary he could ask for. He was alone, he had plenty of hiding places. 

And front row seats to the Avengers, too! 

He scuttled back away from sight when the secret hatch reopened and Hulkling and Wiccan reappeared through it. They stood under the moonlight, where once Hulkling had landed with two children, hand in hand, hearts practically leaping out through their eyes. 

When they kissed, Magpie could feel his own beating and swelling. Damn, and he was the only one seeing this?! Where’s the popcorn vendor when he needed one! 

They shared a few quiet words, too soft even for his sharp ears. And then those bat wings tore out of Hulkling’s back and Wiccan stepped away, giving his large boyfriend room for takeoff. 

And then he was gone, in a burst of wind that faded, too, and left Wiccan alone, standing in the cold light, watching the skies for his love. 

“Billy?” 

The Scarlet Witch appeared from the shadows, the hatch sealing shut behind her. She stepped carefully to the light. Wiccan shook his head and ignored her. Betrayed! 

Goddammit, he could really use a popcorn right now. 

“I don’t see why I can’t go,” Wiccan complained, but when the Scarlet Witch touched his arm, he didn’t shrug her off. “Teddy’s not an Avenger but he’s going with you.”

“We talked about this.”

“I know, but I still don’t understand!” He whirled finally to meet her. He was much taller than she was. “You don’t know what I’ve seen! He’s strong, he can take care of himself. And he wasn’t going to attack him if he didn’t know what was happening. He knows what he’s doing! I asked him myself—I know.” Why did Magpie feel like they were talking about him? 

“Billy,” she sighed, raking up her long hair. “You’re doing this job,” she spoke after a pregnant pause, “because you’re the best man for this job.”

“It’s _not_ a job, it’s just babysitting.” Wiccan pointed up to the skies where his boyfriend took off. “ _That’s_ a job, that’s where Teddy is and that’s where I have to be!”

“Teddy can take care of himself,” the Scarlet Witch persisted. “ _We_ need you _here_. Magpie isn’t who you think he is, he’s—!”

In the silence that followed, Magpie wanted to scream. 

Even Wiccan seemed to hold his breath, but all that followed was the Scarlet Witch pressing her hand to her ear, and mumbling, “Copy that.” Magpie felt his heart burning, and his lungs were bursting as if he was drowning, sinking down the deepest trenches. He couldn’t stop himself from pressing the back of his gloves to his eyes. He felt angry at the hot tears spilling forth…at the Scarlet Witch, at his life…everything! 

Everything. 

“He’s okay,” the Scarlet Witch said after, facing Wiccan again. “I have to go. They’re waiting for me.”

She flew off, even before Wiccan could protest, but he didn’t. 

He only stood there—watching the skies, like some grounded bird. He sighed, dropping his head. 

Magpie scrambled back up to his feet, swallowing his gasp. He still felt like screaming, and everything was blurred behind his tears but he had to get out of there, crawl back to the safehouse before he was seen. There would be questions to be asked and he wasn’t ready. To pretend, to lie just yet. 

He hid himself in the bathroom to recompose himself, before he came back out and waited for Wiccan to return. The young man appeared soon after, spirits low and deflated, perhaps for being left behind. 

Well. Perhaps Magpie could lend his friend a helping hand for that. 

He peeled himself from the shadows, stepping carefully, practically materializing beside the man, seated on the steps leading down to the empty pool. He’d never found him this way before, glum, staring off nowhere. He felt as silent as the bottom of the sea, as a great stone monument that was immovable. 

“I come bearing poor tidings,” Magpie said, watching the movements of his face carefully. “The Scarlet Witch has flown off.”

“I know,” Wiccan said morosely. “We spoke before she left. Teddy’s going with the Avengers.”

“Teddy?” Magpie pretended to be surprised. He put on a stutter. “But I thought—” 

“He’s not an Avenger,” Wiccan said so quietly, smiling thinly, shaking his head. No words passed between them. 

The opportunity came sooner than Magpie predicted. Suddenly electrified, Wiccan whirled to him, grasping him by his wrist. “Magpie, I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important.”


	13. Chapter 13

The fun part about this adventure, Magpie thought, was that if they were ever caught sneaking out, he could always say, _Well, at least I did it with a buddy._

But they didn’t—if they had, Magpie didn’t know how he would be able to live through the insult. They went exactly the way he took to escape to the burnt house; if Wiccan had questions, he very wisely held his tongue but that only lasted until they exited through a hole in the wall. 

Wiccan spun to stop Magpie from following with a hand. “This is good. I can take it from here.”

“Doubtless,” Magpie said, stepping through the hole and dusting himself, keeping a wary eye on their empty surroundings. “But I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

“What!” Wiccan hissed. “What do you mean that’s out of the question? You don’t think I can do this?” He whipped his hand out to the unknown. 

“Forgive me. I misspoke,” Magpie cut him off with a frown. “I am doubtless that you are capable of surviving the night on your own but what you’re asking me to do is out of the question because there is _no way_ in hell I am going _back_ ,” he pointed backwards to the house, “to that steel trap.”

“Magpie, I can’t take you with me, this is dangerous!” Wiccan muttered through his teeth, panicking as he looked all over, waiting to get caught. “Teddy went to an Avengers mission, an _actual_ Avengers mission!” 

“And that makes it more dangerous than being surrounded by your enemies in a sophisticated underground cage?” Magpie snapped back. “Perhaps I ought to remind you that the last _three times_ my murder had been attempted all involved this particular group of fine men and women.” He counted them off by his fingers. “Morris Delancey, that girl from the Brooklyn chapter who I surprisingly _haven’t_ seen again, and Jake. And I am _not_ going to fall for the same mistake again, assuming _all those people_ ,” finger to the house, “don’t have secret little broodlings planting ill-advised ideas in their little heads. Now you came to me, asking me to bring you out here to go boyfriend-hunting and I have delivered _quite_ satisfactorily and now you owe me.” He frowned at the half-stunned Wiccan. “You either take me with you, or I go back down there and tell them where you’ve gone. I’m sure Stark and Wanda would be much pleased to hear about this.” And to soften the blow of his threat, as always, he smiled. 

Wiccan was still staring. He shook his head. “You are vicious.”

“I’m just trying to stay alive,” Magpie said. “I’m sure you know the feeling.”

Unfortunately, he did. Wiccan suddenly looked ashamed for it. 

He clicked his tongue. “Well, come on! We gotta get out of here before they catch us.”

They took off, then, to some vacant parking lot around the corner where Magpie kept an eye out on the shadows and the skies while Wiccan located Hulkling with his magic. Fortunately for all of them, his connection with the man was strong enough to make the search easier. 

Unfortunately for all of them, they didn’t have much longer until Hulkling was killed by no less than four broodlings, or taken as their own. 

They were gone in an instant. Magpie hadn’t yet quite resolved the new terrain when Wiccan was already sending out a blast and a broodling was already shrieking into oblivion. They stood on a rooftop, a midrise building somewhere close to the water. 

Magpie had loosed several of his knives as soon as he had an estimate of the wings but for aiming poorly, his attack wasn’t quite as effective as one might have hoped. Hulkling was roaring and delivering his punches, fighting out of stubborn tentacles while Wiccan had taken to the air, capitalizing on his space and his magic. 

Which left Magpie quite open to an enraged broodling bull charge. 

“Uh oh,” he said. 

He’d hardly had time to compose an attack before the alien was already lunging for him. He took a step back, bracing for the impact but hoping against all hope that its blind attack could still somehow cause the broodling to miss. 

But it hadn’t. Its aim was true—but the impact never fell when it landed, not even when Magpie had never moved. 

He could find no explanation for it even when he looked down to see what was happening: the broodling flying through him, as though he’d become completely incorporeal. Made of waves of light that shimmered in gold where he came in contact with the broodling. 

And then he wasn’t. And the broodling was gone and when he turned back to find it, it was barreling into darkness. 

And down the edge. 

How would it explain this to the hive mind, he wondered. It was mowing down a human and then the human was gone and so was it. Even the human being himself wouldn’t believe it if it told him what he’d done. 

That he’d killed a broodling without even lifting a finger, simply by rendering himself intangible. What was the science behind that, anyway? 

“Magpie! You okay?”

Magpie whirled to meet the other two fighters, Wiccan just climbing out of a deep embrace. It seemed as if both of them had been too busy to see his circus act. Bless the lovebirds, he thought. 

He smiled, extending his arms. “How do I look?” 

Wiccan rolled his eyes. “Yup. You _are_ okay.”

Magpie grinned. Unless Wiccan had affected his own perception of reality (which he realized was entirely possible), it didn’t seem like he had much cause for worry. He was still opaque. Still alive, still existent. 

He nodded to the bigger man. “How was your first day at school?” 

“Horrible,” Hulkling answered, rolling his own eyes. “I never want to be an Avenger anymore.”

“What happened?” 

“I got a face full of broodlings is what happened.” They regrouped in the middle. “We received a distress call. Tourists trapped in a bus, trapped in a highway. Turns out they were bait, and the driver was sympathetic to the other cause. I was trying to free a couple of captives when they attacked me.” He spread out his long arms, which were a strange combination of tentacles and bestial claws. Magpie shuddered. He couldn’t imagine being hugged in _those_. “And now we’re here.”

“Sounds fun,” Magpie said. He looked up at the skies. “Now unless you want another close encounter with your maker, I suggest we get the hell out of here and find some shelter for the night.”

“You’re right,” Hulkling agreed, putting a green human arm over Wiccan’s shoulders. “We have to get you back to the safehouse.”

“Me? Back in the safehouse?” Magpie sighed blissfully, smiling at Hulkling raising a brow and turning to face Wiccan. “Oh, you sweet summer child. The next time I’m running away, I ought to bring hundreds of pamphlets explaining why I’m running away. But no,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m not going back. I could stay out here!” He spread his arms. “And do some hero work, maybe.”

“ _You?_ ” Hulkling shook his head. “What can you do, anyway?” 

“I can…” Magpie shrugged. “Throw knives! I’m really good at it.” And disappearing, apparently. And pretending he still had knives to throw. 

“Knives? Really?” Hulkling pointed to the skies. “Against those aliens? Those things are built like armored tanks!” 

“Uhh…Teddy?”

Wiccan was pawing at his handsome chest, gazing up. Hulkling and Magpie each looked up to stargaze with him, only there weren’t any stars to see that night. 

Just a squadron of broodlings coming for them. 

“Oh _hell no!_ ” Hulkling cried. The next heartbeat, he had seized both Wiccan and Magpie in his arms as he jumped off the building and spread out his wings to fly. Unfortunately for Magpie, he wasn’t as ready for these antics as Wiccan was so it very much felt like a punch in the gut when Hulkling grabbed him. 

It was the wildest roller-coaster ride he’d never hoped to experience where he was strapped facing backwards of Hulkling, leaving him constantly hard at breath (he couldn’t gasp for air when it kept slapping him in the face), jostled (the safety of Hulkling’s thick, dreamy arm was not exactly recommended for first-timers) and wrestling with nausea (imagine the _Blair Witch Project_ but at front row in 4D). The entire time the three of them (mostly Hulkling, though) were dodging advancing broodlings with impure intentions, he couldn’t do anything more than latch onto the muscles squeezing the life out of him. 

“Blast them!” their carrier screamed when they were aiming for the skies again after flying too close to the East River. 

“I can’t!” Wiccan cried. “They’re too far and you’re moving too much!” 

“Can you throw a knife at them?” 

Magpie gaped. “While we’re flying?! Do you have _any idea_ how wind velocity works, you big, dumb, flying—”

A chorus of voices as the roller-coaster ride broke. A broodling had come too close for comfort, shoving the Hulkling down and off his track when it tried to grab for his shoulders. Magpie was suddenly unleashed, but the relief was only regretfully temporary when he realized that he was free falling perhaps a hundred or so miles per hour, he couldn’t count. On his own. Without any safety on. 

What kind of magpie didn’t know how to fly? 

Hulkling was predictably saving his boyfriend—who, coincidentally, also knew how to fly—first and had no room left in his arms when he wrapped them around Wiccan, damsel-style. Which left Magpie’s safety entirely on the fortunately capable hands of Wiccan reaching for him and crying to the gods, “Magpieinabubble,Magpieinabubble, _Magpieinabubble!!!_ ”

A prayer that was heeded and surrounded him with the besought protective bubble which was exactly what Magpie needed to survive the night, he thought. He was still dropping at an unpredictable speed (for those who didn’t have a calculator and a math book spread out) but the threat of death didn’t seem too close now, especially when his descent to the grassy pad below was slowing down by the inch. 

About the only injury he encountered then was a grazed dignity when the magic sphere popped and left him sprawling on his ass with a yelp. Hulkling and Wiccan landed much more gracefully not far from him, the slighter man jumping out of his man’s arms. Magpie breathed, looking flustered by the experience. “Thank you,” he exhaled to Wiccan hurrying to help him up, his boyfriend behind him, “for being the only one here who cares about me.”

“I didn’t think you could survive that fall either,” Wiccan said, taking his hand. 

They’d only just barely rested from the hundredth near-death experience of the day when their pursuers crashed one after the other to surround them in a circle. They cried each, Wiccan summoning his light around his hands and Hulkling bringing out his sharp fingers again. 

Magpie was still panting. He shrugged at Hulkling beside Wiccan who stood between them. “Still don’t want my help?” 

“No,” Hulkling nodded, eyes on their new sneering attackers, “knives are good. Knives are _very_ good.”

“I thought so, too,” Magpie said. So then, this was it—the experiment he’d been delaying. He needed to produce a set of knives sharp enough to delay the inevitable in spite of the empty sheaths around his waist. He rubbed the pads of his fingers then, steadying himself. Nothing to see here, nothing to see here… 

He folded his arms across the middle. 

When he swung them outwards, a set of three knives fanned out between his fingers. Narrow blades shaped like diamonds stretched out to resemble blades. He couldn’t believe it. 

“Magpie,” Wiccan whispered staring, “where did those knives come from?” 

Magpie looked at him in his own shock and shook his head. “Don’t ask.”

The screeches of the excited Brood brought them all back in focus. Every alien bounded for them then in a concentrated effort to overwhelm them. 

And then there was light—a cold, silvery light that saturated everything into whiteness until there was no darkness to see even behind shut eyes. Anyone would think that this was another one of Wiccan’s undiscovered potentials. 

But Magpie knew better, from the drums beating in his heart and the crackle and boom of an army charging to war. 

He was there, right where he expected him, when he opened his eyes again to the darkness, swinging his hammer left and right, spinning it and launching it to the distance. The click and whir of blaster fire was not far off. 

Magpie couldn’t remember the name of the second Avenger. There was only one that burst out of him when his excitement finally allowed him speech: “ _Thor!!_ ” 

Mjolnir returned to his hand then, whirling like a cyclone as the thunderer roared to the fresh reinforcements of broodlings surrounding them, “Go back to wherever you came from or I will blast you back in pieces myself!!” Iron Man took his place behind him, multiple beaming lights shining from practically every hidden port of his suit. 

“You are no king of us, Asgardian,” one of the broodlings snarled, shifting closer. “And this is no world of yours. You claim to protect it and yet see how much you’ve lost!” 

“ _Well, Gollum’s got a point,_ ” Iron Man conceded, glancing briefly back to his comrade. “ _But I guess that’s why they call us the Avengers. Let ‘er rip, Legolas!_ ”

Magpie would never have expected that one of those trees would have a crossbow built into it—or at least that was what it looked like to him. Whatever it was, it moved about as fast as a more advanced mechanical gun, shooting arrows one after another with only a beat in-between each. Every single one of them struck right into the heart of the startled broodlings who had little idea of what was happening before the projectiles melted through thick carapace rendered their victims lifeless. 

“Cupid’s arrows are looking great, Tony!” the tree said. 

“ _That’s what I said,_ ” Iron Man replied. “ _Thor, now!_ ” 

The call came just as a barrage of finger rockets burst out of his armor. Thor swung his hammer upwards, summoning the boom of dark skies, perfuming the air with the scent of lightning. 

Wiccan was immediately out front and center, arms out, a bluish sheen of sorts coming up over them like a personalized dome. 

If it hadn’t been for his quick thinking, Magpie doubted there would be any of them left in that patch of land after the festival of lightning strikes came down from the heavens, crashing into those who were left without an arrow or a rocket short circuiting upon contact, but ultimately scattering, being drawn to them as a light would draw moths. The ravaged screams of the electrocuted aliens provided the chorus that the popping, crackling orchestra needed. 

And then it was like God had switched the breaker off and everything was dark. Exactly as it would look like after the curtain call and the audience, the performers and the musicians had left for the night. 

Magpie was breathless despite being removed from the battle. He was practically ready to leap at Thor’s arms when the god passed him with the man in high-tech iron, howling, “I knew you would come!!”

“We’re not done yet,” Thor said, pointing to him with a warning finger. 

Magpie threw his hand up at the Asgardian. “What did I do?!”

“I think it’s very clear that you weren’t supposed to be here, Magpie,” Wiccan said to him, dropping their forcefield. 

Magpie eyed him. “Oh, and _you’re_ supposed to be here?” 

“I know I am,” Hulkling piped up, waving his hand. Wiccan and Magpie were in agreement, at least, that he had no business waving that Avengers flag at them. 

“Where is the Queen?” Thor asked. 

When they turned to look for him, they found him next to a withered broodling, forcing its triangular head up with a hand at the back. Iron Man stood close, ready to kill at the slightest indication of retaliation. 

“Closer than you think,” the broodling cackled, rasping. “You have lost your world and you will lose this one.”

“The Avengers do not take lightly to threats,” Thor growled, squeezing its neck from the back. The broodling cried out weakly. 

Magpie felt Wiccan wince. 

“Now where. Is she?” Thor repeated. 

“You will not have to find her,” the broodling answered, breath expiring. “She has ways to bring you to her. You need only look,” it turned to Iron Man. “At those who are precious to you. Your little toys…those fine little children.”

“The newsies,” Hulkling gasped. 

“That witch,” the broodling convulsed, “and the little one that follows!”

Wiccan jumped. 

“And the princeling,” it inhaled deeply, “that doesn’t…know…”

“Me,” Magpie whispered to himself. 

It died with the threat still hanging at the corners of its grin. Thor dropped it in disgust, flying to his feet, twirling Mjolnir in his hand. 

“She’s coming for all that we protect,” Thor told Tony Stark, his head piece crumbling away to his collar. “She means to use the hive network to draw out our vulnerabilities.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that always works,” and the way Stark said those words told Magpie that he didn’t like that it always worked. “See, this is why it’s a good idea to send your wife to Honolulu on a vacation.” He tapped Thor in the chest. “You should have done the same.”

“You know that’s not possible.”

“And _you_ ,” Stark pointed at the three young ones watching by the trees, the one behind them shaking, “shouldn’t be here!” 

“I should be!” Hulkling chirruped. Magpie smacked his elbow at him in annoyance. It was sweetly delightful to see the man double over at his attack. 

“Look,” Magpie began, approaching the two Avengers coming to him, hands out as he began to explain, “you probably don’t know this but if we hadn’t come out here, Hulkling’s new codename would probably be Broodling by now. We came in the nick of time to save his life!” 

“But you didn’t go back to the safehouse,” Thor said, crossing his thick arms in disappointment. “You have no business staying out here.”

Magpie’s hands fell. “I don’t know how to explain to you that I don’t think those people in the safehouse have my best interests in mind. The last three people who tried to put an end to my miserably short life all came from them. Now I don’t claim to know what’s happening but I do know that I would much rather be out here, in the open, vulnerable from all sides where at least I can see who wants to eat me and who wants to kill me.” He crossed his arms. “A luxury, I’m afraid, I’m denied in the killing box where I am surrounded by supposedly friendly faces whose intentions I can’t tell.”

“Can’t believe I’m saying this but he’s right.” Hawkeye appeared all of a sudden, passing by Magpie’s right side. He turned to him. “We wanna mitigate the risk, we’re gonna have to decentralize our vulnera- _ohhh_!” He stared at Magpie, then. 

Magpie glared at him for his reaction. 

“Holy ghost, Thor, you weren’t kidding!” 

“Barton, please,” Thor said. 

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Hawkeye turned to him. 

Thor smiled at him. “Do you?” And that was a clear threat. 

“Hey, I’m just,” Hawkeye raised his hands, “asking as a friend, that’s all. But we should still split them up.”

“I’m not leaving Billy,” Hulkling protested, latching onto Wiccan’s hand before the Avengers ever got any idea to separate them. 

“Yeah, okay, Prince Charming, as you wish.” Stark rubbed his forehead. “Okay, Hawkeye, you take the kids. Take them to Kansas…wherever. I got a few calls I gotta make and Thor—”

“Does what he wants.” And with a smile that could launch a thousand missiles to Brood World, Thor added, “I’m taking Magpie with me. Good call, Stark!” Magpie’s jaw fell open. 

“Um, no?” Stark raised his finger to protest. “That’s not what I said. I thought we agreed that I was the guy who made the plans here?” 

“And I thought we agreed that I was the guy who smashed the faces in?” Thor was still smiling. Looking down at the younger man staring at him, he asked, “Would you like to see the new Avengers Facility?” 

“Uh, no, the answer is no! That place doesn’t have toys for kids.”

“Then that means I’ve nothing to break,” Magpie reassured Stark, stepping close to Thor to be taken with an arm around his back, locked in place with a hand under his armpit. “Don’t look so glum, Wiccan,” Magpie said to the younger man watching him, throwing in a wink. “I’ll try not to have too much fun. Save me some corn!” He waved to them. 

Any further rebuttals were silenced by the sound of Mjolnir spinning and launching them off the ground.

* * *

“So…effectively, we have the whole house to ourselves.”

“Yes, but don’t,” Thor warned him with a finger again, “get any bright ideas.”

Magpie raised his arms. “I was just asking.”

Thor’s room was a lavish studio pad decorated in honeyed varnish and shades of white, at the top floor of the Avengers Facility where it could be easily accessible from flight, perfectly at home in a luxurious real estate magazine. The main bedroom had a large bed that dominated the middle, its back arching out like arms aiming to embrace the sleeper. There was a couch in the same room, and a writing desk at the corner near the balcony covered with literally anything that could be placed on it. 

“Books, notes, a brush…” Magpie felt the bristles. “Ooh, feels luxurious. Coffee mugs…” He raised a bottle of cold brew and shook it. “This one still has some left.”

“Leave off,” Thor warned him, slipping his armor off his torso as he padded to the bathroom. “They don’t belong to you.”

Far be it for Magpie to listen and know what’s best for him but testing the Thunder God’s patience was not something he wanted to risk after a long day. He put down the set of overturned papers he’d been about to read. Too bad he would never know what was on the other side. For now. 

Outside was a smaller room that served as the receiving area. With its own couch set, a mini fridge, a small pantry and a sleek TV that still had its plastic on it. 

“Hey,” Thor called to him, waving a sandwich. It was one of those prepackaged stuff that were good warm or cold. “You hungry?” 

“Am I ever,” Magpie groaned appreciatively, shaking his head. It was one of those days where you didn’t know how hungry you were until you were asked. 

Thor threw the pack to him and Magpie caught it from the air, ripping the plastic apart and tearing at the food in less than a second. He laughed, bending low to take a few more stuff from his fridge. “I thought you’d be famished.”

“I could devour the entire facility right now,” Magpie answered despite the food in his mouth. 

They stayed up late, eating everything Thor had to offer. They never bothered to switch the lights on. Thor wanted to know everything that happened in Magpie’s day, starting with his closest encounter with a broodling in the morning. Thor told him everything he knew about them in return, and everything he saw. 

They moved onto his bedroom before long but they still each had a box of pop tarts they were finishing. 

“So is that where I’m sleeping?” 

“Nope,” Thor pointed to the couch with his box, “that’s where you’re sleeping.”

Magpie rolled his eyes, spinning and falling to his guest bed. “Some hospitality.”

“Hey,” Thor pointed to him with a finger now, strutting to his bed, “don’t push your luck. I already saved you, don’t be greedy. A hero needs his beauty rest.” He sat down at the foot, facing Magpie across him. 

“I wasn’t asking to be saved.”

“Oh really? You want to start this now, little bird?” 

“Oh you think I won’t take you on just because you’re Thor?” Magpie slumped back, looking perfectly at ease. “And I’m eating your food and sharing your roof?”

“Get out of this house and we’ll find out.”

“And what would you do if I fell prey to the Brood?” Magpie fought his smile with a smirk. “What would you say if Stark tells you but you! You’re the Mighty Thor. And you couldn’t protect this one thing? I thought that was what heroes did!” He thought he could hear Thor’s laugh, mocking his challenge. 

But he didn’t. The playful banter…became silence between them. Thor’s thundering voice didn’t fill the space between his walls. 

“Sorry,” Magpie winced. “That got too real, didn’t it? I _will_ sleep on this couch,” he patted the space beside him, “it’s more than I can ask for. It’s not that I’m ungrateful, it’s just that…” He shrugged, trying to smile charmingly at Thor’s suddenly mellow face, “I was just playing?” 

Thor smiled back softly. “You’re always playing.”

“I am as I do,” Magpie said. 

There was something about this silence that felt heavier than the last—not so much that it was completely soundless, or immovable as a wall but… 

Was it nostalgia? Was that the word he was looking for? Was it sentimentality? Or was it yearning? 

He couldn’t find it, not even from Thor’s somber expression, his blue eye shining through the darkness like a star. Like a beacon but leading him to where, he didn’t know. And now more than ever, he wished he did. 

Magpie leaned forward, asking it, “Why me?” A sudden question, but the words felt right. Why would Thor choose to take him, why was it he who felt this way. 

Thor smiled. “You’re my biggest fan.”

“It’s not just that,” Magpie whispered on. “You could have left me in Hawkeye’s care, you could have taken me to somebody else and yet you didn’t. Why?” And why did he admire him so? Why was Magpie always so enthralled by him? 

Thor had no answer, but there was no shame in him to be caught lying. 

“I wish I knew,” was all he said in the end. 

And maybe that wasn’t the right answer. Maybe in time, Magpie would curse Thor for it. But for that night, it was the words he needed to hear. That soothed him. 

It was strangely comforting to know that you weren’t the only one who knew nothing in this world.


	14. Chapter 14

Twilight came for them sooner than they expected, painting the skies a deep shade of blue found only in the cosmos or in the burst veins of a fleshy body. How apt, he thought. 

Apt for the one dressed like a falling star, but more brilliant than a dying satellite for his godly virtues. It almost seemed as if he denied the atmosphere its own light by devouring it, taking it all for himself, painting him in searing white and flashing blue. The colors of retribution. 

His arrival was heralded with a great crash; charred Death had no chance against him, her army shattering in the explosive light. Static filled the air, barely contained by his mortal form. 

He rose, a god reborn, promising recompense against the slights of his people— _their_ people, his one eye ablaze with holy light.

* * *

“Right, so I finally got through,” Magpie said, leaning forward to the faded image before him, like a picture from a TV with really bad reception. Maybe from a dystopian sci-fi show which, he figured, was a very appropriate theme for them right now. “Even better, I finally got ahold of Spot.” The image sighed in relief, almost vanishing for it, but he managed to stay on. “We couldn’t talk for long but he got the gist of it.”

“And what did he say?” Wiccan asked, his voice a soft whisper fighting to get through miles and channels, scarred by a tinny quality. 

Magpie sighed, throwing his shoulders up. “What do you think?” He leaned back to the couch, looking comfortable with his legs crossed on the cushion. “It’s hard for a doting captain to accept that at least one of his babies might be infected by a broodling. Imagine if a black swan came swooping in to a white swan’s lake and tells her hey, one of your swanlings is secretly an ugly duckling inside but you’ll never know until it quacks and everything is ruined.”

“That’s not an analogy I would have used.”

“You just feel bad for the duckling.” Magpie cocked a brow. On his own crossed legs, Wiccan looked deflated. “You okay? You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I’ve been Googling.”

“I thought Uncle Hawkeye didn’t like those new fangled devices? I didn’t even know Uncle Hawkeye had a farm.”

“It’s not his, per se, he said it was more like,” Wiccan raised his eyes in thought, “a lease. SHIELD connections and all that. But actually, it’s pretty cool. He made us mac and cheese and let us watch TV.”

“I thought he had signal jammers?” 

“It’s a complicated setup. He says he had to call in Stark just to troubleshoot it—it’s _that_ complicated.”

“Are you sure you should be telling me all this? I thought it was a secret location?” 

Wiccan smiled wanly. “You don’t know how to get here and frankly, neither do I. He just had me read his mind and then I saw this vivid picture in his head so I brought us here. Pretty smart, if you ask me. He doesn’t have radios too ‘cause he said he couldn’t read them and I guess that means less chances of being found, too.”

“But he has a TV.”

“He says he can read them, at least.”

“Okay,” Magpie threw his hands up, “whatever. So: Googling.”

Wiccan twiddled his fingers. “Magical Googling. I’ve been using my powers to check out the city.”

“But you couldn’t project your astral form to Spot?”

“I didn’t know where to find him. I mean yeah, he’s in the safehouse but I don’t know _where_ in the safehouse. You, at least I know. You’re in Thor’s room at the Avengers Facility.”

“So what does it look like outside?” Magpie leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest. 

“Quiet,” Wiccan said. “Everywhere is empty, kinda like we’re expecting a storm.”

“Or waiting it out.”

“What’s it look like there?” 

“Quiet,” Magpie echoed. “I don’t think there’s anyone else in this place. It’s really tempting to go around but I’m not in the mood to trip some state-of-the-art security system and,” he squeezed the flesh between his eyes, “I really need to sleep.”

“Sorry for waking you up,” Wiccan apologized with a guilty grin. “I really appreciate it that you got up to meet me again at 3 AM, though.”

“Thor’s snoring is keeping me up.” Magpie smiled and Wiccan laughed, buying the lie. The truth, of course, was that Thor’s snoring had accomplished quite the opposite and lulled him to sleep. Something about its rhythm and its baritone had set him at ease even though it sounded to him like someone was pulling a cow away from its meadow and it was grunting and whining at every inch, refusing to get up. He dreamed about the dark city, then. The one in the middle of a thunderstorm with the falling star. When he woke up it was already a quarter past two—barely an hour since he and Wiccan first spoke. He decided to while away the time by raiding Thor’s pantry again until he and Wiccan reconvened. 

“So…” Wiccan began again, and was almost too embarrassed when he asked, “Five AM?” 

Magpie wished he hadn’t, but he nodded and said, “Five AM.” He needed information, needed to know more about what was happening outside. “I’ll let you know when Kelly texts me. He’s probably still awake.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Go to bed, Billy,” Magpie said. “Don’t keep Teddy waiting.”

“Teddy’s asleep.”

“Trust me,” Magpie shook his head, “he’s not.”

He struck off his image in the air, causing ripples in the light. Wiccan smiled as he finally disappeared.

* * *

He woke up again roughly an hour after the last of his and Wiccan’s clandestine meetings. The room was light now, Thor’s bed empty but slept in, his slippers absent. Through the wall behind him, he could hear the toilet flushing and the faucet running. 

Thor’s heavy figure stepped out. Magpie screwed his eyes shut. The door slid open. 

When he opened his eyes again, he caught the train of Thor’s shimmering silk bathrobe floating through the doorway leading into the outer room. He greeted someone with a low, sleepy voice. 

A brief rustle of fabric followed, two bodies meeting in a hug. It almost seemed as if Magpie was prying into some moonlight affair. 

“How are the children?” Thor asked, settling his bulk on the sofa. 

“They’re okay,” the woman said. The Scarlet Witch! Playing the role of the mistress, as if. No one tell Vision. “They’re still a little shaken up but that’s to be expected. I don’t remember being so calm and composed during my first riot.” She laughed a little. 

“You know, I’m really glad they have each other,” she added after a pause. “Back in Sokovia…in my first riot, the only reason I managed to pull through was because of Pietro.”

“He was a good man,” Thor said quietly. 

“And how is he?” the Scarlet Witch asked after another moment. Her voice was quieter. “Does he remember anything?” 

“No,” Thor answered after a heavy pause, resembling the groan of a boulder being rolled off the mountain. “But he sounds so much like him. Sometimes it scares me, but I realize more and more that I,” he breathed, “truly miss him. And I don’t think I know what I’m doing anymore.”

“Thor. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“I think the world has made me crazy, Wanda. All that time traveling, the stones, the magic…maybe even the fighting. It’s true that I miss him but I don’t think I should have done it. Everything,” he sighed, “everything that’s happened, everything I see tells me it’s not right.”

“If I could have the same fate happen to Pietro,” the Scarlet Witch spoke, “you know I would have done exactly the same thing.”

“But Pietro has done nothing wrong.”

“We were sympathetic to Ultron for a time. We helped him get what he wanted. We brought him to Sokovia.”

Thor lost his words. 

“Thor,” she went on, “everyone makes mistakes. Maybe you’re right, maybe this is a wrong decision. But we don’t know that right now. And no one should blame you without being in your shoes.”

When the words died, Magpie held his breath, seeking the silence for any sign of life, any shift of movement or breath. 

In the quiet waiting, he fell asleep again.

* * *

For one rare heartbeat, the universe stopped. A brief repose enjoyed atop the chaos that they orchestrated. A time of peace, for a change. For one breath, both their arms and guards were held low to rest their tension. 

Daylight shone through the clear walls of their private world, a bright curtain that shrouded the ugliness beneath their feet. His brother smiled at him, a kind of smile that was a little tired, and nostalgic, and maybe a little sad. 

“Loki,” he said, soft thunder rumbling, “I thought the world of you.”

* * *

When he woke up finally, Thor was gone. His bed was made, and his slippers were left on a rack near the door that led out to the corridor. He found them while he was looking around for…anything. Anything. 

For his efforts, he found a note addressed to him, waiting atop a fresh set of clothes. 

_Magpie,_ it read. _The Avengers called early so I had to go. Happy will be the one to take you home._ His English handwriting (was it correct to say that he spoke in Asgardian?) resembled that of a 7-year old trying to develop his own style while trying to make his teachers happy. _If you’re hungry, you’re allowed to go for drive-thru. The money is with him as well as the access codes you need to exit the facility. If you need one of your own, you can use my wifi password. Stay safe, Magpie. I’ll visit when I can._

He took a shower after, put on his new clothes (a black Stark Industries top and some gray trainers with the Avengers A at each hip this time) and stuffed his dirty ones in a Stark Expo 2017 shopping bag he had Happy bring him (limited edition, Happy insisted) when he arrived to fetch him. The note, he took with him inside one of his pockets. 

Breakfast was a Bacon McDouble with fries and drinks on the side, consumed while he was grilling Happy with the events from yesterday. New York, as was her character, was moving on from the recent tragedy. A good percentage of her population, however, was declared missing, and that was only the initial estimate but Happy insisted that this was a great improvement from the 2012 Chitauri Attack. What wasn’t clear yet was why these people were missing, because they could be anything. They could simply have taken advantage of the situation, been taken captive, or had been members of the Brood all this time, and had either escaped or been killed by the Avengers. 

Was the war against the Brood over? It wasn’t, Happy said, and Magpie thought so. The tension was there in the uneasy traffic, the just-opening stores, the quiet people who walked the streets. 

The empty front of the gothic Manhattan mansion, which seemed to look so strange and small suddenly, after yesterday’s events. 

No jokes, no teasing as he stepped off the sleek car. He couldn’t have gotten out any sooner. 

The great house itself was quiet when he stepped through, and the children calling him a secret Avenger the last time he returned from a near-death experience were nowhere to be seen. 

As was everyone else. The dark lobby seemed so much bigger now that there were only his footsteps to fill its empty shell. 

It would be some moments still before another one joined his, urgent ones coming in from one of the corridors. 

Magpie turned and there was Davey, in fresh clothes but with a face that looked like he was still looking at fresh horror. Still, he couldn’t imagine a time when their good deputy leader had looked at him with a happier smile. 

“Magpie,” he gasped with undeniable joy when he hugged the taller brunette. Magpie’s arms were frozen for a second before they enclosed around the slimmer man. His bag fell to the floor. He missed the heavy ringing of his knives. He no longer had any of those blades he so loved. 

That he no longer needed them, though…was disconcerting to say the least. 

Jack Kelly wanted to see him—this was what Davey said as he pulled Magpie to the office where Kelly gave him another welcome hug, shorter and more business-minded this time. 

“I have to admit, I can’t remember a warmer welcome,” Magpie said with his usual confidence as he dropped onto one of the seats at the side of the executive desk, throwing a leg on top of the other. Really, he was just overcompensating for the plainest of his clothes which not even his beloved fur-lined coat could improve. “Still, I find the lack of newsies disturbing.”

“We’re currently operating on a skeletal force.” Kelly took his place on the desk as he always did. Davey took the other chair across of Magpie. Between the two of them, he thought Jack Kelly looked to be the one who had a better grasp of things but his high-strung nerves and the fatigue were clear on his jaw and eyes. “Only senior newsies out in the streets. Everyone, especially the younger ones, will be kept in the safehouse until we get the go signal that everyone can go back up here.”

“Is that wise?” 

“I used to think that it was but then you’re questioning me so now I have doubts.” Kelly leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Is there anything else that you think we ought to know?”

“I’ve already told you,” Magpie swept the air with his hand, “everything that I know.” Before he and Wiccan first spoke, he had gotten on the phone to contact Manhattan. “The Brood could be anywhere. They may already be in any one of us and you wouldn’t know. We didn’t know Jake was already one of them until he attacked me. The only way we could know who they are is if we find a way to test their blood and match it with Jake’s, or even Delancey’s if you’ve already gotten ahold of that.” He indicated Kelly with his hand. Kelly responded with silence. “Which I’m assuming you still haven’t. Alternatively, we can just sit back,” he folded his hands over his tummy, “and wait for them to infect us. Which really is a more effective solution than anything else my brilliant mind can come up with.”

“Jake’s still in the hospital,” Davey shared, shrugging a little. “In an induced coma. Maybe once the lab results are out, we’ll get more ideas.”

“By then, it might already be too late,” Magpie said. “They have the advantage of surprise and we can only hope to contain. Unless you get some first responders down there, everyone’s fish in a barrel.”

“So much for the safehouse, then,” Kelly grumbled, turning sideways as if that would be enough to hide his disappointment. 

“Well, at least you’ll be protecting everyone from the external Brood.” Magpie beamed. “I imagine this is all way above your paygrade.”

“This might surprise you but when we _volunteered_ ,” Kelly eyed Magpie to make sure he understood what the word meant, “to take these roles, we knew we were going to have to make some pretty tough decisions. Rest assured that we know what we signed up for.”

“What if we just split them up?” Davey piped up suddenly. “Let’s bring up the kids, and the ones we know…” He looked guiltily at Magpie and his bouncing foot, “ _think_ we know are safe…and leave the uh…the others in the safehouse. That way, we uhh…” For what it was worth, the difficulty of his predicament had brought color back to his face. “We umm…I, I mean it’s not…it’s not entirely foolproof. But uhh…uhhh, it has some um…advantages.”

“Divide and conquer,” Magpie said, spreading out his arms with his shrug. “That could work. Divide the superficially innocent from the accused.” Davey burned at his blunt summary of the plan. “It’s cold, but it’s a time-honored plan. I would advise you to start with Jake’s circle of friends, though. Lowe, Bax, Guv, Monahan…” Were there more? He forgot the rest. 

“Fortunately for you, that’s my and Dave’s problem,” Kelly said. He nodded to the door. “You can stay in your room.”

“You have far too much faith in me, Captain,” Magpie said, smirking. 

He left them to their executive devices, then, and didn’t even linger long enough to eavesdrop anymore. The idea of food was far more attractive to him, and with the house being empty, he could have the kitchen all to himself. Just him, his food, and his own thoughts. What could be better? 

He found himself reading Thor’s note again as he sauntered to the kitchen, but kept it as soon as he heard voices coming from the open door, laughing. Someone had already raced him to the stove. How disappointing. He could already smell eggs in the air, and some butter and milk. 

The sight in the kitchen was exactly as he’d envisioned it—but he never expected to see Hulkling, ungreenified, flipping the pan or Wiccan snickering as he popped some bread into the oven and cranked it up to 3 minutes. 

Those dark eyes turned to him suddenly. A bright smile split up his face. “Magpie!” 

Magpie, though, stared as if he’d seen a ghost. He heard Hulkling put down the pan to call his name. He faced him, then, to answer him. 

“Hi,” he said, slowly. “Sorry. Could I borrow your boyfriend for a minute?”

Magpie pulled Wiccan to the mess room as soon as the magician had consented to his request. He brought them both to a couch where Wiccan finally pulled his hand free, shaking it. 

“Ow!” he hissed, flexing his fingers. “What’s gotten into you?” 

“You said you could read minds,” Magpie sputtered, sitting closely to him. 

Wiccan stared at him, but with a wary look, he nodded. 

“Okay.” Magpie nodded back. “I need you to read my mind.”

“What!” 

“Think about it!” Magpie persisted. “I can’t remember if I had any other name or if I had a brother, I can’t remember a single thing about my past. But if you can read my mind then maybe you can find them and tell me who I was in the past!”

“I…” Wiccan began, “I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

“You can’t know unless you try.” Magpie smiled, still pushing the doubtful magician. “Please,” he said, “I’m desperate here. I’ve been having dreams I can’t find an explanation to, in places I’ve never seen. They must be telling me something but I can’t understand unless you,” he offered his hands to Wiccan, “help me. Please.” He breathed. “You’re the only one I can count on here. No one else will tell me anything.”

A little guilt tripping never hurt anyone, and most especially not him. Wiccan’s dilemma was neither here nor there for him; what was only important at this moment was for him to accept the task being requested of him. 

Magpie was ready to bargain—already, his mind was working on favors he could extend to the younger man but they vanished from his mind the moment Wiccan nodded. 

“Okay,” he said, nodding to show his acceptance. “Okay but I can’t promise this will work. I’ve never done this before.” He raised his hand, almost as though he would touch his forehead. Magpie whispered his heartfelt thanks. “Close your eyes. And just…clear your mind. I think.”

Magpie nodded, complying to his mind reader. Soon enough, a kind of cool light broke the blackness behind his shut eyes, undulating like the moon from underwater. With the silence, with only his breath to hear, it almost felt like being transported to a different world, again. Like one of the dreams he’d had—that one with the smell of sulfur, the charcoal sand, the demon standing over him—

_Stop!_ He panicked, forcing his attention back to the cold moon, the shifting darkness. _Stop, don’t think,_ he reminded himself. He tried to relax but his muscles were stiff with tension. Even his breathing was becoming deliberate, and he thought the blue light had taken on the rhythm of his pulse, waxing and waning, waxing and waning. 

Darkening, fading, disappearing… 

He heard Wiccan exhale. “I don’t know how to say this,” he began after a moment. 

“What?” Magpie replied in some alarm. “What is it?” 

Another pause. “You can open your eyes now.”

Magpie did. The room felt suddenly overbright. Wiccan sat with his shoulders slumped, a deep crease on his brows and a frown on his face. It almost seemed to him as if he was looking at him with suspicion. 

“Well?” Magpie asked, holding his breath. 

Wiccan inhaled, still looking troubled. But with a shake of his head, soon enough he revealed his findings: “I couldn’t do it.”

Magpie’s brows quivered. “What?” 

Wiccan sighed, shaking his head. “I tried but I couldn’t get through. It’s like…there’s this wall of static keeping me out, and I couldn’t reach through it no matter how I tried.”

“Wait,” Magpie stopped him, “I wasn’t thinking of a static wall—”

“I don’t think it’s you, Magpie.”

“But there was a point where my thoughts wandered!” Magpie was getting excited again,eyes ablaze, fingers tingling, perhaps just a little desperate for an acceptable explanation. “I went to the first dream I could remember, maybe that was it!” 

“I would have seen that dream, Magpie.” But Wiccan sounded sorry, discouraged even. Dispirited? “If your mind was as clear as it should have been, then I should have been able to pick up even a few stray thoughts. The things we never think about. Our names, our feelings, our ages.”

“So you think it’s _me_?”

“It’s not difficult to open up about them, Magpie,” Wiccan continued in spite of his question. “It’s more difficult to keep them away.”

His implications laid heavily on his thoughts. The feeling of denial was so familiar to him now that he failed to recognize it when it came. “But could…” he tried again. “But maybe…could it…was it my amnesia, then? Maybe I’ve completely forgotten everything, maybe it’s a lot worse than I thought!”

All purely baseless, of course. The hypotheses of the lost. Wiccan didn’t even have to say anything, he could see it in the curve of his brows, the press of his lips. He wanted to say something but stopped himself. Out of sympathy? As one would in the hospital, facing a critical patient. 

“Maybe,” Wiccan conceded. “Like I said, I wasn’t sure it would work.”

Lies. But Magpie appreciated it. 

He giggled suddenly, like a madman driven to the end of a bridge. Magpie relaxed into the back of the couch, laying his head on its shoulder, smiling at the frowning Wiccan. “Well,” he said. “It was worth a try.”

He wanted to scream.

* * *

He’d never felt more trapped in his entire life. 

In the past…in the near-past, he’d always found an outlet to his frustrations, a distraction to satisfy him even momentarily. Picking up fights, playing tricks, seducing, making out, having sex, cooking food, sneaking out, raising all sorts of hell. They were all good ideas while they lasted, but now, at his darkest days, he couldn’t see the joy they brought, feel the excitement they came with. 

All he could do was lay in his bed, drapes over the light of his window, his door locked. He stayed absolutely still in spite of the sparse footsteps echoing down the hall. When someone knocked on his door, asking for him, Magpie played deaf. In time, they would leave him alone, and he would be surrounded by a tenuous quiet again. 

He slept and woke, in and out, played with the knives on his writing desk, took a shower, changed, laid down, slept and woke again. He didn’t know when darkness fell, could see nothing beyond the strange dreams he unearthed from his broken memory, the little bits and pieces he’d picked up from eavesdropping—Katherine and Jack, Wiccan and Wanda, Thor and Wanda, hell, even Thor and the damn broodling! 

He got up, so fast he almost killed himself with nausea but his vision suddenly seemed so clear. He pushed back his curtain to see that it was dark out. He hurried off his bed, then, shoving his feet in his boots. 

About half an hour later, he was at the back of a taxi, asking to be driven to upstate New York. _Just left,_ he texted Wiccan. _Check on me from time to time. Kelly should still have me traced 24/7 but I’m not sure._

_Where are you going?_ Wiccan asked. 

_I have to look for myself,_ was all Magpie said. _If you believe in a god, then pray that my prayers will be answered._

The driver dropped him off at a corner close to the Avengers Facility. Unfortunately for him, what with the threat of the Brood still ripe in the city, he wasn’t confident he could bypass Stark’s security protocol and he doubted a fruit basket would do the job this time. 

Still, he had some ideas that could work. Waiting for the road to clear, he got on it, aimed his phone at an angle that captured the emptiness of the night perfectly and took a selfie. _Meet me at the corner,_ he texted after the picture. _I’ll try to let you know when a broodling gets to me first._ Satisfied with his threat, he sent it out to Thor. 

“You think that was a funny joke to play?!” 

If it hadn’t been for his surprisingly excellent balance and agility, Magpie thought he would have fallen over and kissed the floor of Thor’s balcony and maybe the blood from his nose when he broke it. But he managed to right himself with only a couple of stumbling steps. 

When he turned to face Thor, huffing and dusting his ruined coat, he could still hear the clouds booming with unspent thunder—or maybe that was just him? Maybe that was his imagination, replaying Thor’s anger in his head as the man glowered at him in the present, fuming, pacing, cape fluttering, ready to swing that hammer to his face, maybe. For what it was worth, his plan still worked—shortly after he sent the message, Thor arrived in a loud thud, grabbed him by the collars of his shirt and coat and flew them both to the balcony where he threw Magpie back to his feet. Something in him told him that Thor had done this many times before. 

“Well,” Magpie breathed, “I suppose I must thank you for your prompt response.”

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Thor’s voice was as heavy as rain clouds with the echoes of a fresh thunder. 

“Oh, I think you were counting on that,” Magpie said, keeping an eye on Thor as he dropped Mjolnir and marched to the sliding door leading into his room, reaching to pull it open. “My absence, my distance from _you_.”

Thor paused, mid-motion. He cast a confused look at Magpie, ire still riding high on his brow. “What are you talking about?” He slid the glass open and stepped through. 

For a moment, Magpie felt his resolve quake but he soldiered on—because he had no choice. Because he had already risked his precious friendship with Thor so he might as well throw everything to the wind. He followed him in. “I’m talking about the past, Thor. You, and me.”

Thor was headed for the door leading out to his receiving room, but thought better of it and stayed instead to face the frowning Magpie, crossing his thick arms across his chest, waiting. A challenge. 

Magpie took a deep breath. “You know me,” he began, holding onto that fever building up in him, a fire stoked by his amnesia, by so many people who refused to answer his questions. And this all, he blamed on Thor now. “I don’t know how, I don’t know why but you. Know. Me. When you visited me in the hospital, it wasn’t only because you were across the street when it happened, it was because you knew me. When you brought me here after the Brood’s attack, it wasn’t _only_ because of your civic duty and your nepotism, it was because _you know me_.”

“So what are you insinuating?” Thor asked, filling the vacuum with the wholeness of his voice. “That there’s something I know about you that I’m not saying? Look—Magpie, you can’t just go around blaming everyone for your amnesia. I know nothing about it!”

“Then why do I see you in my dreams?!” Magpie cried, his pitch rising. “Why were you there with me when the demon stabbed me in the dark world? Why were you there in the dark city? In the room with the bright lights?!”

Thor stared at him in bewilderment, almost as if his accusations and desperation had scandalized his godliness. “I don’t,” he began but failed to follow through. “I don’t know,” he tried again. “I…I have never been gifted by the Norns, I don’t know how to tell dreams.”

“This can’t all just be me, Thor,” Magpie pressed on despite the dampness he felt in his eyes. “These are worlds I’ve never seen, I can’t dream of something I never knew!”

“Dreams,” Thor reached for him, a gesture to ask him to calm down, “are strange things, Magpie. Trust me, I know. They could be metaphors, or they could be a foretelling. They’re not necessarily of the past.”

“Then who’s Loki?!” 

The effect this had on Thor was more than Magpie had imagined. It was almost as if he’d spat out an age-old curse that the god had never thought to hear in his lifetime. One of those names that couldn’t be said, a spell that couldn’t be invoked. He stood frozen, something almost like terror in his eyes. 

Magpie was starting to frighten himself with his own thoughts. He flicked his tongue across his lips, stepped forward and tried to thaw the tension—

“How did you know him?” Thor questioned him, taking several steps closer, pointing to him. Magpie felt uncertain of himself again. “How did you find out that name?” 

“In the room with the bright lights,” Magpie revealed. He swallowed his spit. “I told you, you were there. You said to him Loki, I thought the world of you.” He paused to watch Thor’s gaze fall to his feet. “Why would I know his name if it meant nothing to me? Why would you know him if that dream belonged to the future?”

“Loki…” Thor began, the burden of that name on his shoulders. Magpie held his breath. “…is no longer of the future.”

A blow greater than any he could have prepared for. “What?” he whispered. 

Thor turned again, dragging himself to his outer room, if only because it seemed much easier for him than to face Magpie with the truth of his loss. “Loki was my brother. He was my equal. We have had some…” He tilted his head, left then right, “rather distasteful arguments in the past. But he died sacrificing his life for mine, and for our people.”

“Dead,” Magpie uttered. 

At the door, Thor looked over his shoulder. 

Magpie couldn’t even think about what Thor was seeing now. A ghost, maybe. The echo of something that was, a lost spirit. A poor malnourished version of himself. “Dead,” he said again. 

“Yes,” Thor said, marching heavily back to him. “Loki is dead.”

“But he can’t be dead,” Magpie insisted, laughing, smiling but he couldn’t even bring this delight to his eyes. It broke too easily, shattered by the weight of Thor’s revelation. “If he’s dead, then…I can’t be Loki.”

“Magpie?” 

“I thought I was Loki,” Magpie revealed to the curious Thor approaching him, forcing another smile. His voice broke when he laughed, throwing his hands up. “Okay? I thought you were lying to me because I thought I was Loki. I thought you were calling me Loki in my dreams.” 

Thor stepped closer still. 

“But if I’m not Loki,” he shook his head, “and I can’t be because he’s dead…and I’m here. Then who does that make me?” He gasped. 

“Magpie—” 

“I’m _not_ Magpie,” he snarled. Sniffled, pressed a smile to his face as Thor closed the distance between them, his face obscured by the tears of dejection. “But I don’t have a choice, do I? Better to live the life of a lie than to have nothing at all. Isn’t it?”

Thor knew, perhaps, that any answer he could give was no comfort to him at all. If he fought again, he would only extend Magpie’s failure but if he agreed, he would be agreeing to the lie Magpie was only telling himself to soothe his disappointment. A hollow victory. 

When words failed, the God of Thunder knew at least that it was a time for actions. He leaned low, and brought his arms around Magpie to pull him close for a firm embrace. Magpie responded in kind, bringing his arms up to reach for Thor’s shoulders, hiding behind one to conceal his sobs. It would always be this way, he thought—so close to the truth and yet always so far. 

No matter what he did, this was how it would be.

* * *

But it couldn’t be, could it? For as long as he had breath, he couldn’t stop, for all the good that will do him. Call it persistence, call it stubbornness, stupidity. A boon, a curse, whatever. If this was how he was built then so be it—he may be living the life of a lie but at least he wasn’t lying to his own nature. 

Thor brought him home, as he once did, dropping him off on the parapet before he took off. Magpie waited for him to clear the skies, then hurried down the roof. 

_One more shot,_ he thought to himself, swinging down hatches, through doors and secret corridors that brought him to his hands and knees. _Just one more shot!_

What he didn’t like about this plan of his, though, was how much of it—practically the entirety of it, in fact—was hinged on chance. On circumstances such as the Brood attack and Bumlets’ attempted murder. Unless Kelly and Jacobs had more presence of mind than Magpie gave them credit for, the password Bumlets made for him would still be set. Otherwise, he was going to have to find another way into the security room. 

He whistled at the click in relief, darting through the parting walls as soon as the light came on. 

“Okay,” he said, looking over the screens, hands on the console. The entire house was dark, empty and still. “There’s got to be a database of residents here…” He exited to the main menu, and all those individual images resolved themselves into one big picture, turning each monitor into a significant piece of the puzzle. 

It took him some time to familiarize himself with the interface but it wasn’t long until he until he was tapping on icons, navigating through screens, scrolling up and down. It was like a Starkphone, he thought, but much bigger and more complicated. 

Soon enough, he was facing a roster of names, topped by a search bar with a blinking cursor. “Yes,” he hissed, putting in his name. 

His biodata came up, his picture a recent photo of himself looking equal parts delighted and smug for the attention. God, this was just what, a month ago? Two? He could still remember the day as though it had only been yesterday. His codename was printed under his photo. 

Everything else was redacted. 

He hissed out a curse, banging his hands on the panel then reaching to grab his hair, stepping back. Everything he needed to know was there but inaccessible—his full name, his birthday, hell even his age. His educational history, his criminal record, all the little interesting trivia, he could care less about. But God, his name, his family! 

He tried others to compare—Davey Jacobs hid nothing from him and neither did Racetrack Higgins. But Wiccan was a similar secret, and apparently, so was Jack Kelly, whose picture told of a time when he was less imposing than he was now, with a shapelier face and hungrier eyes. 

Kelly turned out to be a surprising mystery, but it seemed wrong that he was the only one who knew about his past. Stark would have never let him through the door, much less appointed him as captain, if he didn’t know what he was. 

He folded his arms as he stood back, tapping his foot, exploring the screen. There had to be a way to expose the database, unearth that information. As an experiment, he hovered to the secret name and pressed it. 

Blocked by a black field demanding a password. 

Magpie tried the one he knew. When that failed, he cursed under his breath and dropped his head. Great. He probably needed Stark’s own passcode here, or someone of a similar authority. And who was that? 

“Thor,” he gasped suddenly, eyes alight with surprise. Of course! He still had his access code from the facility. Would that work? 

He keyed it in, fingers flying. 

_Welcome, Thor,_ the display greeted him, reloading Kelly’s biodata with all information exposed. 

“Yes!” he growled, giving the air a punch in the guts. Turns out he was a lot luckier than he was giving himself credit for. His heart was racing as his eyes skated across unfamiliar names and dates, words. Real name Francis Sullivan (he did not look like a Francis, Magpie thought), mother deceased, father incarcerated, declared missing since the 2012 Chitauri Attack. So this was true power. 

Now for the moment of truth. Magpie cracked his knuckles, hovered to the search field and typed in his name again. _Magpie._

Nothing would have prepared him for the barrage of pictures and sprawling texts bursting in his eyes, nearly blinding him. He only realized he’d stumbled back in surprise when he nearly tripped on the leg of one of the chairs. How could they have so much to say about him?! He was _Magpie_ , he was the one without a past, the missing name. How was it possible to forget all that? That this was all his life? 

In the changed topography of his biodata, he knew he had to look for familiar territory from which to start. So he looked for his picture and saw himself looking back at him, quietly thrilled, with green eyes and black hair. _Magpie, April 2018,_ the caption read just under his chin. 

Right above a second picture of a face he had never seen before, but sent chills running down his spine. He was an older man, pale, gaunt and wounded, with long black tresses and green eyes, both seeing and unseeing through the lens. There was a war being fought behind his gaze. From his look alone, he could tell that he wasn’t mentally present during his mug shot. _Loki Laufeyson_ read the name beneath his picture. _April, 2012._

Loki…Thor’s brother?

And apparently: his real name. 

If the biodata was defective, was giving him false information on purpose, Magpie couldn’t begin to imagine where it started to lie and why. It gave his age as a whooping _1,053_ , his birthplace as _Jotunheim_ and his race as _Frost Giant (Jotun)_. _Laufey_ was the name of his biological father— _Former King of Jotunheim_ —but _Odin All-father, former King of Asgard_ was listed as his adoptive parent. His biological mother was said to be _Farbauti_ and _Frigga, former Queen of Asgard_ was his adoptive mother. Which made this _Hela Odinsdottir_ , and _Thor Odinson, current King of Asgard, Active duty_ as his adoptive siblings. _Thor Odinson_ of the Avengers himself! No other. 

Magpie’s head was starting to reel. Had the broodlings known all along who he was? Was that why they called him a prince? As far as out-of-the-world bullshitting was involved, however, this was all very…tame. 

But he couldn’t begin to imagine why he had been given two dates of birth— _approx. 965 AD_ and _April 27, 2018_ —and worse, why there also existed a date for his death— _April 27, 2018_. 

Three months ago. How could he have died and been born at the same day? _Three months ago._ A baby wouldn’t even be old enough to play peekaboo or sit up at that age, but here he was, a young man. 

Or an ancient one, it seems, who was 1,053-years old. 

And a war criminal, responsible for the 2012 Chitauri Attack. Marked as _Very dangerous_ on Doctor Stephen Strange’s Alien Watchlist. _Alien?_

“What?” Magpie whispered in surprise, shook his head. “No!” But he couldn’t say which part he was saying no to—his criminal record, his alien classification, his age, his parentage…everything. Everything? 

A set of still pictures, of places were lined up in two columns at the other side of the screen, flanking his profile with his portraits. 

Magpie hovered to the top of them and tapped to open it, bringing it to the center of the screen in an enlarged frame. 

It was an old video. _2012_ read the corner of the clip set in a deep, dim room, painted absolutely in aquarium blue, but darker. At the end of the room, a man in greens and blacks knelt at a raised platform of sorts. “ _Sir,_ ” said one of the two men watching him across the space, “ _please put down the spear._ ” Silence from the other man. 

And then a burst of light shot straight into the other men from the same spear in question, exploding in a chorus of lights and panic. Magpie gasped and jumped away from the screen. Bullets flew, tearing through the air and so did the man, taking down his shooters, unscathed. 

Unbelievable. He was all over the place, moving like a mad machine, swinging his spear, flinging…knives?! Magpie’s fingers itched and he shuddered. The attacker spared one of the men’s life for whatever reason, pointing his spear at his heart—

_Hawkeye?_ Magpie couldn’t believe it. With the largeness of the screen, even such tiny details was as visible as the clouds from space. So Hawkeye had known him? All this time? 

“ _This doesn’t have to get any messier,_ ” the first man said. 

“ _Of course it does_ ,” the attacker said in a low voice, weary but excited. “ _I’ve come too far for anything else. I am Loki, of Asgard. And I am burdened—_ ”

“—with glorious purpose,” Magpie whispered, eyes wide in shock. He knew the line. Could practically taste the importance of it in his mouth, feel the thrill of it spreading out on his skin. 2012. Technically, he wasn’t even born yet, but he knew the words. 

He knew it all along. 

“Magpie?” The voice echoed in the emptiness of the house at night, a mixture of cautiousness, surprise and something akin to hope. Poor Davey. He had always been so unfair to the man who only treated him as though he were one of them, never a stranger. “What are you doing here?” 

“What am I?” he asked in turn, watching the rest of the clip. 

“You?” Davey parroted. “You’re a newsy.”

“You’re one of us,” Francis Sullivan added. 

“ _You’re my son,_ ” an old man said to him. 

The clip ended and closed, and there he was, face to face again with his self. 

His two selves. 

He growled, “What more than that?” He turned then to face the men standing by the open wall. 

Francis Sullivan, with his careless hair and his red neckerchief, looked at him as though he wasn’t all that his profile was accusing him of. “We were going to tell you sooner or later,” he explained. 

Sooner, or later. Not “now”. He couldn’t even say if he was even telling the truth anymore, or if he was still lying. For all that it mattered. Whatever. He wasn’t going to fight him anymore. He was done. 

He was done pretending. 

Closing his eyes, he chose instead to disappear.


	15. Chapter 15

“And if you see him,” Davey said to the woman by the door, several stories down the pavement but it was a quiet morning in that neighborhood and his anxiety was pushing his pitch up, higher and higher until his voice strained to break in it, “please tell him we’re all looking for him. We’re all worried about him and…” He paused uncertainly, seemingly frozen by the strike of a thought. 

“You want him to come home?” the woman asked, brushing back her long brown hair, letting it fall messily into place. Her natural look. 

“No, don’t say that.” Davey sounded disappointed, looking down. “Just tell him we’re all worried about him. If in case you find him. That’s all. I have to go now. Jack can’t run the whole place by himself. He already has enough in his mind.”

“Okay.” She reached over to his taller shoulders. Elevated by the step of her front door, it was easier for both to embrace. “Send my love to Jack and Les, okay?” 

“Are you sure you and Mom and Dad wouldn’t want to come with me to the mansion? It’s not safe out here.”

“Dave, this is Earth,” she laughed sweetly. “Of course I’m not safe out here, no one is. If it’s not aliens, it’s climate change. Or worse, it’s men. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” She reached to tuck a stubborn curl into the back of his ear. They embraced for one last time, and then he was off. 

With the show over, he pulled himself back into the bedroom again, keeping the window open while he drew his knee to himself, and sighed, leaning back to the fluffy pillows propped up, on the bed he had sequestered from last night. The whole apartment smelled like an old blanket, the kind that would lull anyone to sleep as soon as they pressed their face on it. 

Through the thin wall, he could hear someone’s hurrying footsteps as he said, “I have to go, honey. Promise, I’ll be home for dinner later. Good luck with your editor.” A pause.

“Call me when you get to the site, okay?”

“I will. Bye!” The slam of a door, and then hasty footsteps, fading away. Ahh, the idyllic life. 

The brunette returned to the open doorway of his bedroom, dressed in a long white dress that belonged to the past and was fashionable now among the Instagram idols, her featherlight hair gathered to one side while she held her sides. “That was Davey, but I guess you already know that.” She neither chided him nor made fun of the visitor. 

He was finding out more and more how it was difficult not to fall in love with this woman—beautiful, classically so, kind, generous, pretty and sweet, with a good head on her shoulders and two feet that carried the entire weight of her freedom without overbalancing. Too bad he wasn’t a woman. 

…well. That could change, apparently. 

Still too bad she belonged to a family of morally upright citizens. He smiled. “If you want me to drop you off at the mansion, Sarah, you need only say the word.”

“I’m fine here,” she reiterated, driving her point without raising her voice. She raked her long hair back again as she approached him. “But you,” she sighed, finding her place at the foot of his bed, pushing aside his coat. “You can’t stay here forever in Dave’s bedroom, Magpie. Whatever it is you’re going through, I’m sure you and the boys could talk it out.”

_Magpie._ Once, he loathed that name and now he missed it. How sweet it sounded now, in the light of things he’d discovered of himself. Whoever chose it ought to be proud of themselves. He smiled sadly at the innocence he lost. “I wish,” he whispered. 

After teleporting out of the gothic mansion, he appeared in the Jacobs household, hiding himself until he spotted Sarah descending the stairs carefully, a frying pan raised. He captured her from the back, hand on her mouth to stop her from screaming although she hit him squarely on the face with the pan. He’d never been gladder for his superior bone structure until then. “Stop,” he’d whispered, “and listen. It’s me. You know who I am.” He couldn’t even say his alias anymore. “Put down the pan, and we’ll talk,” he went on when Sarah no longer fought him. 

When she lowered her weapon, he turned her around and stepped back, showing her his gloved hands. 

“It’s me,” he repeated, keeping her eyes in sight. “I need a place to stay for the night.”

A place away from the truth. Away from the liars, for all the futility of his escape. He could run away from them but not from his dreams, and his fragmented memories which would haunt him no matter where he hid. Turns out there really was no rest for the wicked. 

That he managed to sleep uninterrupted was a miracle in and of itself. With his Starkphone turned off, Jack Kelly would have no way of tracing him. As for Wiccan, there was no word from him. Perhaps he was keeping his distance, he thought…or he couldn’t find him? 

Impossible—remembering bits and pieces of the past was one thing, relearning his magic quite another. 

“Well, come on down,” Sarah said, getting up. “I made us breakfast. Bacon and eggs, if that’s still something you’re into.”

Magpie grinned—fortunately for both of them, he still was. 

He’d practically polished off all the bacon he was served, strips and oil and all, in a matter of three minutes. Practically devouring them the moment he fell on a chair and threw his coat at the back of another. The eggs, he was less enthusiastic about but was grateful for, all the same. 

Sarah had joined him at the start but left as soon as she had finished her first plate (“Can I have the rest of your bacon?” “Sure.”) to brush her teeth, brush her hair and put on some cologne and a lipstick—the one Magpie had given Katherine when they traded makeup. He agreed with his friend now, it did look charming on her. 

Magpie kept his thoughts to himself when Sarah returned to the kitchen, replacing her dishes with a red plastic folder containing several sheets of plastic and paper. She went to the sink to start washing. “I should have you here more often. No leftovers!” 

“I don’t say no to breakfast food, you know that,” he replied, failing to catch himself as he pulled the folder towards him, leaned back and flipped it open on his lap. Turns out that part of him didn’t change either. “What’s this?” he asked, flipping past pages of columns of texts, broken by pictures of insects, sketches… 

The Brood, Magpie noticed before long. 

“Layout designs,” Sarah answered, setting her dishes to dry. She came back to clear the rest. “Katherine gave me the job. I’m off to meet her, do you want to come with?” 

“No,” Magpie said, flipping on. “You deserve some privacy, you two.” He also wasn’t sure he was ready to meet her now. How much of her BFF did she truly know? Plus after their last meeting… “Will these be printed?” 

“That’s the plan. We still need to meet about how and when, though. We’re thinking flyer-style but we’re not sure if it’s worth the expense as compared to just sharing it on social media.”

He stopped at a rather artful— _unrealistically_ artful, considering how disgusting the entire process really was—timeline of a broodling’s various stages from human to overgrown insect, using information, it seems, gleaned from whatever specimen they had on hand right then. _The gestation period of the Brood species is among the fastest of any alien race,_ the text below it read. _From the infection of a host, the virus only needs 7-10 days before it matures into an entirely new broodling._

Seven to ten days! Alarming wouldn’t even suffice its development. Magpie felt a shudder run down his skin. Which day was it when Jake attacked him? 

He started to do the math, counting down to one week from the day. What had happened since? Jake’s suspicious activities, the girl from Brooklyn attacking him, his first encounter with the Brood, Delancey stabbing him, Blink and Mush coming home beat up… 

That was day 1. He sighed—ah, the familiar feeling of pursuing something and going nowhere. He couldn’t even remember what Jake had been up to that day. He’d come back late the previous night with some friends, yes, but… 

The previous night. Wiccan’s welcome party. That night, Jake and a few others both from the Manhattan and Brooklyn Chapters went out for an afterparty of their own—not an uncommon practice among the newsies but if this was the catalyst of the crisis…and if their late return had been caused by a rather untimely (or timely? It all depended on one’s perspective) infection… 

Day 0.

“Ymir’s bones,” Magpie whispered to himself, staring at the page. 

“Magpie?” Sarah called to him, turning slightly to catch his stunned gaze. She shifted back uneasily. “Magpie…what’s wrong?” she asked him, but Magpie hadn’t given her a good answer. 

“Call Katherine,” was all he said. And then he was up all of a sudden, shoving his chair back, stumbling to his feet. “Tell her the meeting’s been cancelled! Don’t leave the house and don’t let anyone else in unless you’re sure they’re clean.”

“And how do I know that?” Sarah asked, raking up her hair. 

“Stab them,” Magpie said, throwing on his coat. “If they turn into a broodling, run. You probably won’t make it out alive but it’s better than not trying.”

“And where are _you_ going?” 

“I need to make some new friends,” he tripped to the closest window of the tiny room, pushing it open to look out, surveying the distance between him and the ground below, like some Casanova escaping the wrath of the husband. “Old enemies, new friends. Call Davey, tell him to call every newsy out in the streets back to the mansion. Tell him to pass the message.” He stepped out into the fire escape. 

“And if he asks me why I’m saying this?” Sarah chased after him, not so much to stop him from committing the first mistake in his new life but to catch every word he had to say before they said goodbye. Permanently. Maybe. 

He leaned in through the window. “Tell him a god said so. And to trust him—he still knows what he’s doing.”

* * *

How exactly he was going to do it, though, was something he’d only thought about on his way upstate. Given, this was probably not the most refined plan he’d ever come up with but pressed for time, and not exactly being perfectly in sync with his past yet, this was the best he could hope for. 

And, it was simply effective. His arrival was heralded, for instance, by blaring sirens and he imagined nearby drones being turned to his position the moment he scaled that gate and jumped off. The entire Avengers Facility was blasted with several warnings and threats to his life until his speedy progress to the building was halted by a squadron of Iron Man suits aiming every single blaster they had on his personage. Not something he wanted to risk and fortunately, didn’t have to. 

“This might surprise you,” he said to those empty faces, hands up, “but I actually come in relative peace.” He offered himself to them after, arms out. “Take me to your king.”

For a bunch of brainless puppets, they were surprisingly gentle, he thought, as they carried him to the nearest entrance, flown in with the entire patrol unit as his escort. A patch of the wall, perfectly camouflaged, opened up to let him through. 

“Okay,” Stark began, welcoming him with his presence while his automated suits returned to their duty, sealing up the wall behind Magpie. Thor came with him, dressed as casually as his friend, both of them rocking a Led Zeppelin shirt, to what looked like a rather stylish living room, eying him with a look of concern. For that, Magpie smiled at him. “I know you’re not exactly banned here and,” the mechanic gestured to the Asgardian behind him, “Thor’s here so you’re technically allowed to visit but this is an official Avengers residence for official Avengers business and Earth-saving matters and unless you’re a relative or a friend, you really gotta stop treating this like a Starbucks.”

“Well fortunately for me, I am,” Magpie answered without missing a beat. “And this time, I do come bearing dire news of the Earth-saving nature. The Brood. I think they might be attacking tomorrow.”

“How do you know this?” Thor asked. 

“The gestation period,” Magpie turned to the wary god. Through the back of a wall, he could hear two pairs of footsteps arriving. “Seven to ten days—” He broke off to welcome the new old faces, both dressed this time in button down shirts, one looking cleaner than the other. “Oh good. You’re all here.”

“What’s going on?” Steve Rogers asked his buddies, taking his place next to Thor in a soldier’s stance. 

“The Brood is poised to attack again, possibly tomorrow,” Magpie shrugged. “The gestation period gives a broodling 7-10 days to fully mature from conception.”

“Okay,” Stark interrupted, drawing his attention back to him standing with his arms crossed. “Now tell us something we don’t know, Sherlock.”

“The last attack happened one week after a certain newsboy, namely my would-have-been murderer, and some of his friends snuck out of the Manhattan mansion for a little party,” he scratched the air with his fingers, “of their own. The day after, they came home late. As if something had kept them quite busy the night before. And no, Medda isn’t to blame.”

“So you’re saying,” the fourth man spoke up finally, a face Magpie had never personally met yet but he was as famous as the rest of his friends despite the fact that he wasn’t always seen in action with them—at least not this version of him. “That that night, they were all infected?” 

“It all checks out,” Magpie said, shrugging. “Before last week, he’s never stalked me or had reason to attack me. Coincidentally, I’ve had to deal with three attempted murders in the span of the same week.”

“And if what you’re saying is true,” he went on in his careful voice, a scientist at work, “and it’s been two days since the wide-scale attack…that means tomorrow is the tenth day.”

Magpie smiled at his perfect conclusion. “Precisely, Dr. Banner.”

Banner stared at him all of a sudden with the look of horror. “Wait,” he said, turning to the rest of the Avengers, “wait, why does it sound like he knows something more? Thor?” He turned to the Thunderer. 

“And you’re sure that they’ll attack tomorrow,” Thor said instead, his brows frowning in thought. 

“I’m not saying I’m sure, Thor. All I’m saying is that, seeing as we’ve kindly,” he swept his hands out, “decimated their kind, they’ll need reinforcements to carry on with their invasion. And where else could they find a vast supply of numbers easily with the lowest chance of retaliation?”

“The orphan shelters,” Rogers answered. 

Magpie smiled at him, aiming him the nozzle of his finger gun. “Bingo. Right you are, Captain! If my theory is correct, they’ll have broodlings perfectly poised to do the devil’s work at the snap,” he snapped his fingers, “of a finger.”

“Yeah, it all makes perfect sense,” Stark said, meeting everyone’s eyes. “The broodling we interrogated, that’s what it said.” This time to Thor. “The children.”

“So how do we find out which one of them’s infected?” Rogers asked. 

“Don’t worry your pretty head over that, Captain,” Magpie said. “I have a plan.”

“Plan?” Thor snapped to him as if he’d said a taboo. “Magpie, you’re not of the Avengers.”

“Yes,” Magpie agreed, “and I don’t think I ever will be, considering the history we’ve had,” Banner’s hands flew to his hair, “but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a plan. I’m trying to help you out here, Thor.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you just did?” Thor threw his hand to Magpie. “You just alerted us of a potential attack and I think that’s a big help!”

“You know, I really don’t know anymore if you truly care about me, or you’re just trying to keep me in the dark a little longer.” Magpie frowned. 

“You may think what you want but nothing changes: Magpie, this is beyond you,” Thor said, looking him in the eye. “I’m just trying to protect you.”

How long had it been since his ancient ears heard those words? Beheld his flattering gaze, blue like summer skies, as he said them? Magpie laughed softly, smiling with equal brightness. Too bad he would have to draw in the clouds to rain on the God of Thunder himself. “Oh Thor,” he said, shaking his head. “I wish I could still believe you, but I think I’ve heard more than enough for two lifetimes now.”

It was as if he’d sang out a curse, and one that blew the greatest of Earth’s mightiest heroes into silence. If Banner could scream then, Magpie thought he would have but even he was too stunned by his confirmation that yes, he knew now they’re deepest secret. Yes, it was time to stop playing games with him. 

Thor was the first to move, pointing to him, “How did you know?” 

“As I always have since no one ever wants to help me,” Magpie began, “I went looking myself.”

“How long did it take you?”

“An embarrassingly long time,” he rolled his eyes, “for which I don’t know whether to blame you or commend you.” He frowned at his brother. “And I find it difficult to imagine that you’d somehow taken up spellcasting in your free time so tell me: who was it?” He waited for Thor to reply, but when the man only looked at him in confusion, he continued, “Was it Strange, that second-rate sorcerer, who put me under? Was he the one who cleaned off my memories and put me in a new body?”

“Strange had nothing to do with this, Loki, and neither did Thor,” Rogers answered evenly. Turning to the newly awakened man, he said, “It was you. This was all you.”

Magpie pulled his brows low. “What?” 

“It’s true what I said,” Thor stepped in, moving closer. “You _were_ dead, and you hadn’t faked it. You went against Thanos and he killed you.”

“Thanos?” The name brought him no memory. 

“Okay, this is all,” Stark whistled, clapping his hands as he stepped into their sparse circle, “really shocking, and bad…maybe not so shocking, thanks to Thor.” He smiled to the frowning god. “But, before we take a trip down memory lane and start bringing up all the bad things he did like murder,” he counted them off on his fingers, “invasion, trespassing, burglary, grievous bodily harm, destruction of public and private property,” Magpie rolled his eyes, “could I bring us all back to the present? You know, the kids. The Brood. The infection.”

“Tony’s right,” Rogers said, addressing everyone. “The past can wait but the broodlings aren’t going to wait a day longer. This could be the only chance we have to be one step ahead of them.” 

Magpie interrupted his rousing speech with the clearing of his throat and a shrug. “Might I remind everyone that I already have a plan?” For all the baggage he had yet to unpack, and for whatever it was worth, he at least already had everyone’s attention. 

Even Tony Stark could not keep himself from rolling his billion-dollar-eyes.

* * *

Despite Tony Stark’s poor opinion of Magpie’s previous life (something he agreed was entitled to him) (the implications of Tony Stark being the charity network’s sponsor and therefore, his own was just now sinking in) (Tony Stark who looked like he would have killed Magpie a second time without regrets if he just had a lot less heart in him), he was surprised and pleased to note that the man was a good sport who hadn’t raised any infuriating roadblocks to his idea except for the usual logistical problems, the solutions to which he provided himself, anyway. Probably just his way of safeguarding whatever was important to him against Magpie’s less than virtuous image, he thought—but this, he didn’t deny him either. 

Before long, he was on board a quinjet, strapped to the wall for safety, trying to recall in his silence if this was a kind of deja vu he was enjoying—the flight, the company, the hum of the aircraft. One among many to come in his near future, he imagined. Just another perk of living a double life. 

The door slid open. He looked up to see Thor ducking through, battle ready. “Now will you tell me everything?” he asked. 

“What?” Thor replied in kind. “All 1,000-something of it?” He took his place beside his brother. 

Magpie rolled his eyes. “I imagine we won’t have much time for that so I’ll settle with my most pressing concern: my death,” he said, facing Thor. “What happened? How did I die? Who’s Thanos?” 

“You really don’t remember Thanos?” 

“Would I be asking you if I did?” Magpie snorted. “This isn’t a trick I enjoy playing.”

“Thanos was a mad man,” Thor answered, then. “A mad Titan. Just imagine a really big purple giant,” he explained when Magpie looked strangely at him. “Anyway, you had a bargain with him. You would rule Earth with the help of his Chitauri army—”

“I remember that,” Magpie said. 

“—and in turn, you would give him the Tesseract, which had been stranded on Earth since Steve Rogers’ time. It contains the Space Stone, that’s a uhh…” Thor pressed his lips together when he finally noticed the blank look Magpie was giving him. “Just uh…stop me if I’m losing you.”

“So I got killed…for a stone.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that. But it was a noble death.” Thor smiled reassuringly, nodding. “You would have been proud.”

“On the off chance that I could remember it.”

“You’ll actually do yourself a favor if you don’t,” Thor winced, rubbing his neck. Magpie raised his brow. “After that, he destroyed the entire ship and I,” his eyes fell, “couldn’t even keep your corpse. All those times that you’d died…some fake, some for real, I always thought I should have given you the benefit of a proper burial. For all the wickedness that you caused, you were,” he faced Magpie, “and are…and always have been my brother. I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been without you. You had always been there…every single day of my life that I could remember. Playing with me, fighting with me.”

“I’m sorry I remember none of it,” Magpie said, speaking from his heart. If Thor had truly never stopped caring for him, in spite of all the maliciousness he was being accused of, then he wanted to know why. “And how did I live again?” 

Thor hissed, wrinkling his face tight, “That’s one thing I was actually hoping you could tell me.”

“Me?” Magpie spat, eyes round. 

“Well, between the two of us, you’re the sorcerer. I just bring the thunder.” Thor beamed briefly. “Strange said you must have done something with your magic. The moment you died, he said you must have,” he shrugged, “perhaps triggered a spell of sorts.”

“If neither you nor Strange knew how I lived again, who found me?” 

“That was me,” Thor answered, looking at him. “After the war was won, and we were helping the world rebuild, I had a dream about a magpie, flying over the ruins of New York City.”

Magpie’s heart skipped. 

“It alighted at the foot of a monument. I went searching for it the next day, and true enough, you were there, under the rubble. Asleep but alive, and so much younger than when you’d died.”

“The magpie…led you to me?”

“Yes,” Thor said. “It’s why I called you Magpie. When we learned that you’d lost your memories, we agreed that it was best to hide your identity, except from a few. We placed you in the orphan network, and asked them to pretend that you’d always been one of them to protect you from your past. Everyone is worried you would only resume your old ways once you remembered who you were. Earth still lists you as a most wanted criminal, see. Not exactly the best place to start your second life, is it?”

“Well,” Magpie chuckled, smirking slightly, “I guess I didn’t get the memo.”

The speakers came on then, “ _Thor, we’re up._ ”

“Well, good talk,” Thor grunted, getting up his feet. Magpie unbuckled himself to follow. “Captain calls. Time to do some hero work.”

“But surely, we’ll have time after?” Magpie asked, chasing after him. “I need to know more about myself and my past and you’re the one who knows me best here, Thor. Besides, you owe me for being complicit to my amnesia.” He eyed him. 

Thor stopped by the door to consider his demand, and smiled. “Fine,” he conceded, releasing the lock to exit the room. “Sounds fair.”

They stepped off the quinjet by a ramp leading down the front lawn of the Manhattan mansion, Magpie marching at the lead of a flat triangle formed by him, Thor and Captain America, both of them to each his side. Considering his most stylish arrival to what was supposed to be his home and family, he wasn’t surprised to see the front door swinging open to witness the return of the prodigal crow. The backwash of the rising aircraft must have contributed a stunning effect to his entrance, he thought. In their earpieces, Iron Man reminded them quite helpfully that they were on their own as he and Bruce were headed off to Brooklyn to meet with the other Avengers. 

All in good order. 

There was a ready smirk on his face as he recognized his stunned welcoming committee—Jack Kelly and Davey Jacobs, of course, along with some others of the Manhattan Chapter peering over shoulders and heads and every other crevice they could turn to a window to have a piece of the moment. 

“Did you miss me?” he asked them, beaming, but by then, everyone was already vibrating with excitement, crying out names—Thor, Captain America, his own, others who needed to come down and see this. Magpie turned back to his escorts and said to them, “Let me do the talking.”

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” he heard Captain America telling his brother as he left them. 

“Well,” Thor replied, “there are stranger things in life.”

“So,” Kelly spoke up, receiving the smug returnee who approached closer, “this is quite an entrance. You staying for good?”

“That depends,” Magpie replied as he strutted up. 

“On what?” 

He didn’t stop for the niceties, though. He raised his hand to tap Jacobs back, and that parted the fist of onlookers for his ingress. “On me,” he said. “Magpie coming through.”

In the lobby, he stood in the middle of the large space, commanding for himself an empty circle in which he stood on parted feet and an importance that brought his chest out, never mind that the gathering this afternoon was not a particularly large one. Still, it was commendable, he thought—especially as he liked to think that he was the man behind this. 

What a spectacular twist of events, he thought. He left this circus an aimless bird and returned…as what? A new man? 

Or maybe a bird who finally found his wings. 

“Okay,” he addressed the crowd, smiling cheerily at Racetrack beaming past shoulders. “I know this is a very terrifying time of horror stories and uncertainties and even with two up and coming superheroes in the house,” he nodded and gestured to Wiccan and Hulkling watching from the upper ledge, “we just can’t help but feel unsafe. Still, not all is lost.”

Spreading out his arms, as a bird would, ready to take flight, he proclaimed to his congregation, “ _Your savior is here!_ ”

* * *

The plan, for all that he made of it, was relatively simple:

The main site of the execution was not the main house but the safehouse, several leagues underneath. This was where all the suspected infections were held, and with nothing better to start with, everyone agreed that this would have to be good enough. And since a broodling wouldn’t readily out themselves on the interest of their mission, they would instead be subjected to a more psychological treatment. 

The problem being: they only had one mind reader in the house. 

“Unfortunately for us,” Magpie said, “this is the best that we can afford.”

He stood with his brother in a gray corridor flanked by meeting rooms at each side, exposed through a fake window that was an opaque wall on the inside. Magpie supposed this was just another feature of a Stark property, the man behind it being quite famous for being prepared for every situation. _There’s a Stark Tech for that!_ as they liked to say. 

Wiccan was in the meeting room that they were watching, staring intently at a frightened newsgirl across the table, his only company. Bax, if he recalled correctly. The other candidates were held in the rest of the meeting rooms. Hoping to curtail the long line, Captain America had opted instead to check the security footage, see if he could find any strange activities as Magpie once had. Jack Kelly was with him as his guide, and Hulkling as his spotter. 

Which left Davey Jacobs with them—being the concerned mom friend that he was. 

Magpie said all of a sudden, back to the wall, hands within his pockets, eyes still on Wiccan, “So the Brood knew who I was. Had always known of it?” 

“I suspect that’s because of their hive mind,” Thor said, arms wrapped across his chest. With Davey doing another one of his rounds, checking on his ducklings, they found some freedom to speak. “The Brood is an intelligent species, they must have surely chosen Earth to be their next conquest for a reason, and after some considerable research. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be such stubborn pests to fight.”

“I want to know why they’re so concerned about me.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Thor chuckled, turning to his brother who cocked a brow at him. “You’re the softest threat. You’re strong enough to fight them but you don’t remember how yet. They eliminate you or make you theirs, they become that much stronger without even lifting a finger.”

“Really?” Magpie said, brows tight. Thor nodded. “Ugh,” he scowled, watching Wiccan again. “I’m insulted.”

“Well, it’s either that,” Thor shrugged, “or they think you good enough to be king.”

“I thought animal kingdoms are largely matriarchal?” 

“Yes, but a queen must be wanting of recreation too, you know?” Thor glanced at Magpie. 

Magpie shuddered, shaking the thought off his head. “I’ll thank you _not_ to bring that up again.” In one motion, he and Thor turned to the approaching footsteps of Davey Jacobs’ urgent return. 

“Is he done?” Davey asked, looking through the window where Wiccan rose, wearing a polite smile for the wide-eyed newsgirl. “Well, that took long, didn’t it?” 

Wiccan stepped uneasily out the room, closing it behind him—and Magpie knew something was up. He wouldn’t be the one leaving, otherwise. His heart was jumping as he and Thor approached, his pulse knocking hard in his own skull. “Is it her?” he asked. 

The young magician shook his head. “I don’t know, I can’t say,” he answered, looking at each of them in turn, suddenly pale and uncertain. “I couldn’t read her mind.”

“What?” 

“It’s not like yours,” Wiccan said. “Where…” He broke off to look warily at Thor and Davey hyperfocusing at him. 

Magpie waved his concern off the air. “It’s not like my mind where?” 

Wiccan turned again to face him, taking up his cue. “Where there’s a veil that I can’t punch through. This one feels more like a wall, a physical wall blocking me.”

“That’s because you can’t read a broodling’s mind, Billy.”

They whipped back to the newsgirl behind the fake window, raising a hand to the glass of it. Bax—one of those newsies who’d snuck out the night of the party! “We protect it,” she continued, the tension gone from her young face. “We protect the hive.”

“The hive connects us all.” Another voice. They turned, and found a boy—Lowe?—standing by the window next to them, this time in the company of two others. 

“It cannot be breached.” Another one, down the hall, standing on his own. Facing a window with two women watching them, right next to another— _Monahan_. The broodlings… 

They were everywhere! 

Magpie never expected to witness the full-scale of the infection in this manner, staring him in the face, almost like a picture of his failure. “Rogers, we found them,” his brother reported to their earpiece as he shifted back, filling his hands with knives despite their questionable effectivity against such an advantage. “They’re down here.”

Magpie whipped to the gaping Davey. “Get everybody out of here now!” 

“ _I need a minute!_ ” The captain cried in their earpieces. 

“What about the uninfected ones in the meeting rooms?!” Davey screeched. 

The answer came to them not long after, in a series of cries and bangs that brought them back to the windows, and the broodlings, writhing and twisting to shake off the flesh restraining their wings and their alien skulls, their limbs and tentacles. 

“ _Don’t bring them up here to the mansion,_ ” Captain America cried. “ _We’ve got a situation!_ ” 

“Funny that,” Magpie mumbled, feeling the walls shake with the rage of the new broodlings screaming and slamming themselves against the concrete. He pressed a finger to his earpiece. “Would you like to compare situations, Captain?”

“ _What’s going on?!_ ” 

The cracks came soon enough, a second following the first closely, spreading out, a perfect analogy of The Brood’s species. 

Magpie had just enough time to answer the good captain, “The birth of a new regime.”

And then all hell broke loose, full-fledged aliens bursting out in freedom. A ringing hysteria filled the once-vacant corridor as they began their onslaught. Thor flung out his hammer to smash through five broodlings charging at them, Wiccan’s blue light following suit. 

Magpie loosed his knives just before he turned, racing to Davey pulling the frightened newsies through the wall, pointing them to the nearest exit. He jumped. 

“Get down!!” 

He’d barely gotten Jacobs to the ground when the first broodling who was once Bax finally smashed through its wall and lashed its tentacles around Magpie’s middle, stopping him from a messy landing only to yank him back and up the air. He cried at the shock. 

“Magpie!!” 

“ _Loki!!_ ” 

Mjolnir came flying for him but failed at the intrusion of another broodling, charging at a most inconvenient time. Concrete crashed in a series of jarring explosions. Magpie cried and curled up, bringing his fists up to his head as he screwed his eyes shut. Everything was a confusing mess of destruction and voices. 

And then: cold air, striking him with a frigid slap. Magpie gasped, tearing his eyes open. 

The mansion laid below him, several feet on the ground. 

And he was up in the air, flying higher, and higher, and higher still.


	16. Chapter 16

Whether or not it was for a friendly surprise, a prank, or an elaborate scheme to cover his hide, planning had always been a delicate task for Magpie. Others may only see it as a means to an end but for him, this was only one part of it. There was also the value of its complexity to consider, the difficulty of foolproofing it, the time required for the best effect and the time he had to prepare for it, his escape route and the various dangers it entailed…all this, he did on his own. On the ground, it was already hard enough. 

Up in the air, it was much worse. 

Absolutely nothing was going right for him—the broodling had no plans of letting him go no matter how much he screamed and fought. He did manage to turn himself around to face the skies but all that pulling and twisting had cost him the earpiece which he was counting on to contact the Avengers. It did occur to him to risk his chances and shoot a knife through his captor’s wings but every scenario he played in his head involved him missing, the blade flying back to him, and the broodling crushing him, either with its tentacles or its weight if he fell without managing to untangle himself from its grasp. 

If he wanted to escape without losing his second life, he had to do it without attacking the broodling. Every grizzly fate of his seemed to be hinged on that one factor. He didn’t think he could cut the tentacles free without being noticed either, or to pull himself free politely. 

Now if he were to simply disappear… 

That would be his best bet. Every reason in his head was telling him it wouldn’t work but he’d done it once and he was no ordinary being besides! If he could make it work for him that one time…

It was worth a shot. It was the _only_ shot he had left! 

_Phase,_ he commanded himself, focusing on his imagination, of a mirror image that was intangible. Like a hologram, present but unreal. _Phase!_ The only problem was that he didn’t know how to do it, and couldn’t remember if he knew how. All he knew was that this was how Wiccan did it, this repetitive chanting. And magic was magic, no matter which style you applied. So maybe it could work. He didn’t have a choice, anyway, he had to make this work! _Phase, phase, phase, phase, PHASE!_

The splash of golden light took him by surprise. His stomach flipped, arms and legs frozen in the air as he sailed through it. 

“ _Yes!!_ ” he howled, watching the broodling fly on, unaware that the captive it held was only an illusion, a residue of the escapee. “Yes!!” He’d done it. He’d actually done it! He didn’t think he could do it but he did and it worked and he was free—

He cried at the crack of a tree branch on his back, and then again when he met another one with his mouth. On and on, he tumbled and yelped. 

Until at long last, he was rudely spat out to the grass, on his face and groaning. Well, he could imagine worse fates. 

He might have been convinced to stay down a little longer (he’d been through too much, he deserved this respite) except for the distant crying in the air, resembling that of birds. Nothing too alarming to jolt one to their senses but he knew better than to be complacent—it was already too late, perhaps closer to midnight, and while New York was a strange place, even New York had to have its limits. 

He managed to catch them still when he did finally look up, between the crowns of trees. The Brood’s shadows painted black silhouettes amidst dark skies, hunched over tinier figures, like nightmarish storks bearing human sacrifices. With a heavy grunt, Magpie flung himself back up to his feet and dashed for them, keeping an eye on their progress as he went. 

A futile attempt, although one that was noble, for whatever nobility was worth these days. He hadn’t even needed to run the entire way to understand that this was a fool’s errand at best unless he could find a way to fly and close the distance between them, maybe even multiply himself. A smarter person would probably just wait for the Avengers and call it a day. 

Unfortunately for him, idleness never sat well with him. Patience may often be his virtue but only when he stood to win something through it—an outcome he could not yet see in this present crisis. Turns out even he could have his stupid moments. In time, he thought he might come up with something brighter. Until then, he would just have to keep running. Keep chasing. 

Keep fighting. He hadn’t even stopped to see who was coming when he let loose two knives, aiming for two shadows charging at him from the front—

“Magpie, wait!!”

“ _Stop!!_ ”

His limbs were frozen in action. His own knives hung useless in the air, sinking him in deep tarry dread while he waited for his killers to show their faces at the last minute before he was murdered. 

He’d almost died of a heart attack when he recognized them by the light of the magician’s spell while he chanted, “ _StopMagpiefromkillingus,stopMagpiefromkillingus…_ ” Hulkling was as green as ever, and Wiccan…

He looked about as pale as a sick man. 

Somehow, he still managed to knock Magpie’s weapons off the air before he released him from his spell. Wiccan was panting hard, stumbling back to find his boyfriend’s shoulder with his head, Hulkling responding with a hand on his shoulder. 

Magpie took the time to chase his breath, trying to keep the loudness of his voice and his pulse to himself. “Too much?” he asked, seemingly apropos of nothing. 

Hulkling was the one who nodded, looking at his boyfriend with concern. “He’s not too used to using so much magic continuously.” He looked up to Magpie. “I thought _we_ were gonna save you! What happened?” 

Magpie threw his hands up. “Sometimes, a princess has to save herself. How is it that you found me? Where are we?” Last he remembered, they were neck deep in newborn broodlings. 

“Magical Google,” Hulkling answered. “We’re in Central Park. Somewhere…”

Of course. 

Magpie nodded. He patted himself down at the unintended reminder until he’d extracted his phone from his coat. “What happened in the mansion?” he asked, switching it on. 

“You were right,” this time, it was Wiccan who answered, his eyes still closed. “Mostly.”

“ _Mostly?_ ” Magpie popped a brow. He did not like being just _mostly_ right, there was no glory to be had from it. 

Wiccan finally opened his eyes. “The broodlings _had_ infiltrated our ranks, but the safehouse had only held some of them. Everyone else was up in the mansion, waiting to transform.”

“They took some of us,” Hulkling added. “Captain America and I couldn’t stop them all, they were too fast.”

“Yeah,” Magpie said, looking up again as though he could still see the silhouettes flying between the canopies. “I saw them.”

“Where did they go?” 

“In the general direction of thataway.” Magpie pointed to his northeast. “I was hoping I could follow them but I, unfortunately, was not blessed with wings. Billy, can you find them?” He looked to the magician. 

Much to the boyfriend’s wide-eyed protest. “Wait, can’t you give him a minute? Billy needs to breathe—” 

“I can,” Wiccan confirmed, stepping away from his boyfriend to demonstrate his capacity, nodding while he was at it. “Just give me a name.”

“Babe…”

Wiccan smiled wanly at his frowning boyfriend. “We have a job to do, Teddy. I can do this. Wanda believes in us, we can’t let her down…”

“If you hold his hand while he does it, I’m sure he’ll feel better,” Magpie offered. 

For all his good intentions, though, Hulkling replied to his suggestion with a glare. 

Magpie raised his hands. “I’m just saying.” Waited for further resistance from the little Hulk. 

When he offered none, he nodded slightly towards Wiccan’s direction. “He needs a name.”

None of this still pleased Hulkling, but he turned to the waiting Wiccan, and resigned, said to him softly, “Racetrack Higgins.” Wiccan’s eyes closed then, to begin the spell. 

While they waited, the green man took this opportunity to issue another warning to Magpie. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, it had better be good.”

Fortunately for Hulkling, Magpie smiled.

* * *

At any other time, he might not have been too happy about the twig he’d just snapped under his foot. 

But for this one particular occasion, he couldn’t think of a better introduction that would have drawn no less than six broodlings whirling at his personage who, until then, had been busy tending to their assets. 

And by assets, he meant hosts. 

All of them groaning, squirming and sobbing, shaking him with disgust and pity within their sticky prisons that reminded him of pink chewed up gum repurposed as a spider’s web. If he could find a way to slice off a sample and bring it to some lab, he was pretty sure he would make good money from it because everyone was a sucker for anything remotely organic these days. Sadly, he hadn’t made time in his plan for some entrepreneurial ventures. 

Or, well, that’s all still up in the air, depending on how his first meeting with the investors go. 

Raising his hands slowly, Magpie assured them, “I don’t threaten.”

The first broodling swooped and crawled closely to test his honesty, for which he stepped back to make space for it. Now that his identity was exposed, all that squirming, that wet, sticky sound of their bindings, came up in a chorus equal to that of the damned. 

“Magpie…!” they began to moan. 

“Magpie, help!!” 

Magpie shifted his hands a little to shrug. “I suppose I no longer need any introductions?” 

“We know who you are, princeling,” the broodling hissed, forcing him back for two more steps as it leered closer, joined by a second companion. “You think you can save your friends with only your own power?” 

“My friends?” Magpie laughed. “Who, them?” He tossed his hand to the poor newsboys, swinging and twisting. There were many familiar faces to be seen in one sweep alone—Racetrack, Itey, Skit, Elmer…and a few more up the trees, the spaces between them turned to a wall of gum. “Once, perhaps, I would have called them my friends, my brothers, even. But then they decided to lie to me.” He faced the broodling, the inkling of a smile at the corner of his lips. “So I decided to return the favor.”

“You would turn your back against your friends?” A third broodling, joined swiftly by a fourth. He took another step back, pulling them with him. 

“What use is there to chase a shadow?” Magpie responded, casting a quick glance at the nest beyond his interrogators’ shoulders. Already, one of the broodlings had crumpled in two, its corpse eased to the ground by absent hands. “I have done it before and I tell you, in my second life, I refuse to grovel again. These humans mean nothing to me.”

The other broodling had fallen in green hands, its neck forced beyond its limit. 

Magpie tipped his chin up. “Nothing more than a mountain of corpses for me to ascend.”

The fourth broodling sneered. “You say we can trust you?” 

Magpie smiled. “That’s up to you, isn’t it?” As a show of power, he turned his back to them, hands held behind. He paced slightly. “You call me princeling but I find myself growing weary of that name.”

Back in the nest, the first line of captives had been set free, that pink organic gum Magpie had been hoping to invest on evaporating under Wiccan’s influence. Hulkling was there to ease their release. The magician began working on the rest. 

“A prince is a good title,” Magpie continued, showing his profile to his audience. “Albeit one that’s about as decorative as a pretty trophy. A king, though,” he waved a finger, brows deep in thought as he considered the taste of his ambitions in his mouth. “Now that has a nice ring to it.”

He didn’t know a broodling could cackle, but the first one just did. Magpie didn’t know if he would ever be the same again. “You think,” it said, “that just because you were king once, you could be king of us?” 

“I don’t just think, I _know_ ,” Magpie replied, sauntering closer to the aliens. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t yet remember the one time he was king. Was that 2012? But that didn’t turn out too well for him, did it? Could you be king for only half a day? An hour or two? “Because unlike you, I have made this world kneel.” He glimpsed at the progress of the rescue mission. By then everyone was on the ground and Wiccan and Hulkling were ushering them away. 

A third broodling lay on the dirt. 

Magpie’s heart jumped. Where did the third come from? 

A quick sweep of his broodlings informed him that he still had four. Where did the reinforcements come from?! 

“Our queen is not so easily taken by pretty words, _princeling_ ,” the third broodling hissed. “She cares only for what you have to offer.”

“Well,” Magpie said, offering his left hand. “Why don’t we find out?” He threw in a smile for acting’s sake, but he couldn’t silence that persistent voice screaming in his head in a panic. And what if his bluff failed and turned him into an infected host?! There was absolutely no evidence to suggest that he had a contingency plan on such an event. 

The only thing he had going was the idea that he had been responsible for his own revival. How exactly he did it, though, would have to be a problem for another time. 

Not now when the broodlings grinned at the prospect, their tentacles stretching, reaching slowly for no other reason than to prolong the tension. 

Cut short by a veritable crack in the skull. 

All four broodlings whirled in one snap. In the empty nest, Racetrack stumbled back from a fourth snarling broodling, a rock falling from his hand. Magpie allowed himself exactly one second to sigh. 

And then his left hand was grabbing the first broodling’s two-pronged tail and slicing it with a sudden knife. Science won the day again—you couldn’t have a prehensile tail if its shell was too tough to move. Both these fangs he punched through the left broodling’s chest—you couldn’t protect yourself from your own—while his knife, he pitched at the right broodling, the flash of a green light marking its entry point, right where its heart might be if the drawings on Sarah Jacobs’ layout was any good. 

He pulled out one of the bone fangs from the left broodling and spun to drive it through the chest of the one at his back, plunging it as deep as he could while the alien shuddered and crumbled on its legs. “Tell your queen,” he growled lowly, “that I offer to her your deaths!” 

He pulled the fang out, letting the corpse fall to the earth. One, two, three down, one more to go. He tossed the disgusting thing in the air and caught it with a backhanded grip. 

When he turned again to face the last broodling, it met him with a lunge and a wide smile, ready to tear his head off. Magpie opened up his mouth to scream, hands up to protect himself. Useless against the power of the broodling’s jaw. 

He shattered in a sparkle of light, leaving no shred of meat for the stunned broodling to feed on. 

And reappeared on its back in another shimmer, forcing its long skull back so he could pierce one part of its tail into the end of its brain. The effect was instantaneous. 

Magpie held on long enough for a safe landing as the broodling fell over. Now finally: silence. 

“ _That_ was your plan?” Hulkling asked him as he shuffled back into their circle, panting a little while he wiped the sweat from his upper lip. The last broodling to foil the mission lay broken at his feet. Wiccan sat surrounded by concerned newsies at the root of a tree, head back to the trunk. 

Magpie opened his arms. “To my defense, I wasn’t the one who ruined everything.”

“There’s a million and one ways that could have gone wrong!” Hulkling persisted and if Magpie wasn’t wrong, he swore he could see concern written all over his handsome eyes. “What if you got turned into a broodling?!” 

“Well, forgive me for working with limited resources!” Magpie snapped. He didn’t have time for this drama, gods help him. “I can’t remember half the spells I learned, I have to be absolutely reliant on a _boy_ ,” he pointed at Wiccan, “who could barely last a day using magic and on top of saving your grateful hides, I have to deal with _children_ ,” he jabbed his finger at Racetrack’s direction, “who also want a slice of the hero’s pie!” 

“You blaming me for fighting back?!” Racetrack spat. “For being angry at these aliens for what they’ve done?!” 

Magpie turned to see him rising to his feet, peeling himself from Wiccan’s shoulder, a dark look on his face. He answered it with a cheery smile. “No,” he said, “I suppose I can’t blame you for being human, can I? To err is to be human, so you all like to say as your excuse. Well, not _yet_.” Magpie frowned, matching Racetrack’s glare with his own. “Even humans must take responsibility for their actions.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Racetrack cried, marching to him until two other newsboys, Specs and Pie Eater, held him back by his arms. Hulkling took a step forward to Magpie when he moved closer. “Why, you think you’re above us just ‘cause you can fight?! Like you’re some god?!” 

“Because _I am a god!_ ” Magpie roared, forcing Racetrack and the others back a step in shock. “And I am out here, trying to save your lives at the expense of mine because unfortunately for me, there’s still a part of me,” he jabbed his finger to his heart, “that’s human! That remembers you,” he pointed at Racetrack, “when you knocked on my door the first night I was in the mansion, inviting me for a game of cards. I have begun to remember who I was before I became your Magpie but I still,” he approached, “remember. You.” He looked more softly at the round-eyed Racetrack, seemingly captivated by his speech. “You were my first friend in the mansion when I had none. And you were generous, you would always give me the second drag of your cigarette.” 

He turned then to the rest of the newsies watching him, looking up to him, and to Wiccan on the ground, eyes on him. “I remember all of you. Itey for the books you lent me, Specs for the prank we pulled on Crutchie. Elmer,” he tossed his hand to the boy, “for your endless game invites.” He looked again at Racetrack. 

“But we’re not out of the woods yet,” he continued. “And until we are, I reserve the right to hold you accountable for your actions.” He turned to the watching Hulkling, meeting his gaze. “And you will all follow my lead.” He marched back to the patch of land where he had drawn the broodlings away from their nest, inspecting it for any value. “Wiccan is very tired. When the worst comes for us, he is our only exit point. I cannot risk losing him because of some screw-up.”

“Wait…” Racetrack again. “We’re…we’re just _leaving_?” 

Magpie rolled his eyes. He turned back to him. “Please don’t tell me you want to go hunting for broodlings at this late hour, Racetrack. It’s way past your bedtime.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Racetrack said, stepping towards Magpie. “Look, I don’t understand what’s going on with you, Magpie, but I can’t go without Spot. I can’t leave Spot here.”

Magpie eyed him. “What?” he asked, walking back to them. 

“They took Brooklyn, too,” Skittery echoed. 

Magpie pointed to him. “How do you know this?” 

“We heard it from Cap,” he answered, turning to the other newsboys who nodded. “He was shouting out to the Avengers, calling for reinforcements both for Brooklyn and Manhattan.”

“Crutchie said they took Spot,” Elmer piped in. Then with a shrug, he added, “For a queen or something.”

“A queen…yes, that would make sense,” Magpie said. He turned to Hulkling, pointing to him. “You said they moved too fast.” He turned back to Elmer. “And this isn’t all of you. I’m assuming some managed to escape. Like Crutchie.” His thoughts drew his eyes down to his feet.

“Anyone seen Blink?” Pie Eater asked. “I saw a broodling snatch him up but that was before I got kidnapped myself.”

“Boots saved him.” Specs. “Saw him jumping from the window like some wild cat. Boots and Mush tried to save me, too, but…yeah, here I am.”

“Jesus, that was Boots?” Itey. Turns out there were a lot more newsies who’d been left behind than he thought. Boots, for instance, seemed to have put up a hell of a fight. Not exactly the kind of host you would want on a smash and grab run…

“We can’t just leave them here,” Hulkling said to Magpie. 

“I’m aware,” Magpie replied, still deep in thought. Why are the broodlings suddenly so concerned about their immovable queen? 

“Maybe it’s time to stop playing this game of tag,” he mused. 

“Magpie?” Hulkling asked. 

Magpie looked up to him. “Do you know how to play chess?”

* * *

They began the game, as players often do, by picking their pieces. 

The general concession was to not leave without the Brooklynites but not everyone could summon the balls they needed to face up to a monster, much less the queen of such a race. 

When Magpie had made this announcement, uncertain faces looked to each other, gauging their opinions. Only Racetrack seemed determined enough to face death in the name of love (and romance, as Magpie bet), and this was ultimately the catalyst of a series of hesitant volunteers. 

They set the limit to half the group—they needed the numbers—and posted Hulkling as guard of the benched players until they came back with the rest of the captive hosts. 

“It’s almost as if they’ll never see each other again,” Magpie observed from a distance, watching one newsy wrap fierce arms around another, clapping eagerly as they did so. 

Wiccan turned to see. “Well, if this doesn’t turn out as good as we hoped, I don’t think they will see each other like this anymore.” He looked back to Magpie when he noticed the man looking at him. 

“If you do as we agreed,” Magpie said, keeping his voice low, “everyone will go home with a happy ending.”

“There’s too much at risk.”

“Of course there is,” Magpie said, turning to watch the farewell again. “That was never not an option.”

The party collected, the pieces marched to the battlefield—the queen’s nest or as Magpie liked to call it: the throne. The strategy then was to take the enemy by surprise, and then displace them, warp them all out of existence. If successful, they could have enough time to release their friends and beat a hasty retreat. 

“Whatever happens,” Magpie reminded his little squad, “never get ahead of Wiccan. You do not want to have a taste of his magic.” He looked to the magician and gave him a nod. 

Wiccan responded in kind, but the resolve was weak in his eyes. 

Their first hint that they’d reached their destination was the little traces of web that trailed deeper into the pathway, clinging to the barks and leaves of surrounding trees. The moans and cries came soon enough. 

And then there they were—in a dizzy maze made of the fleshy web, trapping the selected hosts. Magpie recognized a few familiar faces from his time as a newsboy. 

But the others were strangers, stitched into the fabric high and low, fitted in wherever there was space to spare—upright, upended, lying down, twisted. 

Magpie couldn’t remember if he’d gone through hell when he died and came back to life, but looking at this suffering wall, the despair watching him, the bloodless faces, the bloodshot eyes, he thought he knew now what hell looked like. And he shuddered. 

Some of his squad were soon losing their mettle. Elmer in particular hissed out a name and stumbled to the wall, grasping at the fingers of a drowning newsgirl peeking through the web despite the others’ protests. They were crying now, both captive and rescuer, foreheads pressed together. 

“Come on,” Elmer said, turning teary eyes back to the group, “let’s start pulling them out now!” But Magpie glared at him, and that was the end of that. 

There were several twists and turns to take but the throne was soon within sight, the seat of honor wrought in the same pink matter. 

And the queen, resting her full weight on it, cackling. 

Magpie had always assumed that the queen was a formidable example of their race. What he never expected was how right he was—she was a large being, her presence far more imposing and dwarfing than her many underlings. She was fatter, her sharp limbs thicker and sturdier-looking. One little misstep was all it would take for one long claw to split them up in half. 

And poor Spot Conlon was alone to face it. It knocked him back with a nudge and he fell to the dirt, seemingly legless. For what might have been the hundredth time in the last hour. His surly mood was practically tangible even from the distance, and the fact that he still had the mindset to be irritated at such an occasion told Magpie he probably wasn’t dying. Yet. 

The queen leered at him while he pulled himself up to his feet. “Dance,” she said, voice high and full of wind. “Dance, I say! You may as well entertain me before you lose those human legs.”

Magpie caught Racetrack’s wrist just as he felt the man shift beside him, practically ready to bolt. He glared at him, silencing his vengeful intentions with a look. 

“I told you, miss,” Spot sighed, flicking his hair back. “I don’t dance just for anyone.” Despite the haughty confidence, Magpie could see his hand trembling at his side. Frightened, he thought instantly, or tired. Or both. He was still only human, after all. “And you’re no special exception.”

The queen hissed at his arrogance, reeling as if in disgust or disappointment. “Your pride will not make you a good broodling. You are skinny besides, and weak! No matter.” The grin was back. “I have read your mind.”

Great, Magpie thought. She was a mindreader, too. 

“I have seen this boy you think of. This Higgins,” she said, leaning back to her throne. “I had plans to turn him into one of us, but I think now I would much rather you two be reunited.”

Magpie glanced at Racetrack to see the confusion on his face. 

The queen spread out her tentacles. “I will turn you into a game for my hardworking broodlings. I will set you each loose, on a hunt for each other. But you won’t be alone,” she cackled, leaning closer to Spot fighting the urge to run away. “I will set my broodlings loose on _you_ , and you can either live long enough to die alone, or see the other turn into a broodling!” 

“That’s sick!” Skittery snarled. 

“We agree,” someone replied with a voice that hissed. “And so we love it!” 

“Who said that?” Magpie snapped, whirling to meet the voice. 

Coming face to face with a grinning broodling, looming with its siblings over the shoulders of the spinning, startled rescuers. A cry barely rang free from them before Wiccan was already raising his hands to the aliens, ready to banish them. 

Putting himself within perfect reach of Magpie who grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him back to the throne room. 

That was how the chaos started—the rising screams, the startled roars, the stunned gapes snapping to Magpie’s direction. 

Magpie grinned at his jilted companions. “Sorry, boys, but change of plans! I assure you, this is nothing personal but sometimes, nostalgia just comes calling.” He lashed out his left to catch Racetrack by his jawline, just when the man had darted forward in an attempt to rescue his boyfriend. “And you,” he smiled sweetly at Racetrack’s wild eyes, “you and your pretty face, are coming with me.” Fingers clasping tightly, he began to drag him to the queen’s presence. 

“Where are you taking him?!” 

“You _bastard_ —!!” 

“One wrong move, gentlemen,” Magpie called out a warning to the newsies at the back. “That’s all it takes!” 

As for the queen, she watched his steady progress with great interest, for the first time ignoring Spot who stared at his friend’s betrayal, now finally wearing the face of true horror. 

“You want to see Spot?” Magpie whispered to Racetrack while the man grunted and struggled to catch up despite his discomfort. “Well, here he is!” He threw him down the dirt, right next to Spot who fell with him when he raced to catch his boyfriend. Closeby, Wiccan remained grounded, groaning. 

“All hail the Brood Queen!” Magpie cried, standing at the foot of the giantess. “I am the one they call Magpie, and I offer you this gift.” He swung his hand to the huddled boys before him. 

She moved closer, grinning at his entrance. “I know you,” she hissed. “I see death hasn’t changed you much.”

“Change is for those who lack resolve and I have ambitions,” Magpie replied. “And you could use a friend to help you in this conquest.”

“You think me incapable of accomplishing this incursion by my own might?” Like a grandmother teasing her favorite grandson. 

Who smiled at the attention. “Count me as your insurance,” he said. “The Avengers are coming for you. And as long as they’re around, you will never get this Earth. You need to strengthen your army to fight them and I’m here to do just that. You need numbers?” He stepped aside to present those newsies he’d left in the care of the broodlings waiting on their queen, wrapped in arms and sweat and fear. “Here they are.” 

It was a presence that easily delighted the queen, who savored the picture of suffering most of all. Magpie thought she wouldn’t have been so patient with Spot’s dismissive attitude if she didn’t get something out of it. And now here he was: seeing it with his eyes, up close and personal. 

Her alien head leaning closer, smiling at her returned acquisitions. “Bring them to me,” she said. 

Her broodlings obeyed with equal fervor, bumping and pushing the frightened, crying lot forward, their numbers blocking the only exit possible. Magpie graced them all with a smile as he stepped closer as if to inspect the goods, ignorant to Elmer’s pleas for help, appealing, as he were, to Magpie’s previous humanity. 

He turned to the queen, indicating Elmer with a thumb, “Perhaps this one might not make so good a broodling. Do you reckon if that game of yours requires a third player?”

“Wait!” 

Magpie would never have expected to see Spot and Racetrack getting over the brunt of their trauma so soon, rising as one. Perhaps death and the closeness of it really made heroes out of everyone—if one were to lose it all, one might as well risk everything. A familiar feeling, even for someone who came back from the dead like himself. 

“You wanna get them?” Spot began, shaking his hair off his face. His hand was too full with Racetrack’s, both their knuckles white from their grips. “You gotta get through us first.”

Magpie turned to the queen and shrugged. “Well I mean, why not? One must always reward initiative.”

“Indeed,” the queen agreed, grinning closely at both men swallowing their fears, and perhaps their regrets down their throats. “I see you can be turned into soldiers, after all. Let’s see who wants to step up first…”

A question for another stalemate. The sacrifice was not meant to outsmart, after all, but simply a futile attempt to preserve their friends and they knew it. The next step was no longer important. Left without a choice, and arrested by cold fear, they couldn’t budge. 

Making it easier for Magpie to shove them aside and boost himself forward with a kick that would send him slamming his shoulder onto the queen’s middle, upsetting her balance with his impact. “Wiccan,” he cried, turning to the fallen magician, “now!!”

Wiccan came alive from the ground then to cast his hand to him, just as Hulkling made his appearance and smashed a fist up a startled broodling’s face. 

That was the last he saw of the battle before Wiccan ported him away with the queen.

* * *

The relief of being back out in the open night was cut short when his face met the grass. Somewhere in his 1,053 years of being alive, he thought he must have surely learned how to land with grace from a sudden displacement spell. Not that it mattered anymore, seeing as how he’d quite conveniently forgotten it. 

Every collision he made with the dirt as he rolled was marked with a heavy grunt. He felt like a boulder free falling down the wall as part of a landslide except his terrain was flat and blessedly green. 

Soon enough, his momentum neutralized, and he lied on the earth with his back flat and his face to the skies, his head spinning. He purred out a groan, holding back his insides before he hurled them all in a most unbecoming manner. 

He’d only just barely recognized the cord wrapping around his ankle before he was sailing across the air, flailing for purchase. The impact this time was not so kind, with only the purest intention to hurt him. 

It was just a miracle he hadn’t broken his shoulder when he crashed on it, the excess force dragging him for some distance yet before he fell on his back. Magpie hauled his entire being, nausea and all, up to his elbows to gauge the situation, looking through squinted eyes. The first thing he noticed was a device that looked suspiciously like a Starkphone strewn carelessly on the grass. 

That went under the Brood Queen’s sharp leg, almost as if she were setting an example of what she was going to do with him before the night was over. Magpie rolled his eyes. So much for that. 

“Clever,” she commended him, kicking his dead phone away. “You exposed me, brought me away from my hive—but not for long. Soon my broodlings will come for their queen, and maybe even your precious little friends! But I don’t think you’ll recognize them anymore.”

“Well,” Magpie grunted, bringing himself to a knee, “after what I did to them, I think it’s perfectly justifiable for them to come for my neck.”

Her bemused laughter made her throat click. “I was wrong—you _have_ changed much! What happened to your resolve?” 

“Clearly, you’ve never met a trickster,” Magpie said, rising. Lights flashed behind his eyes, blinding him momentarily but he managed to stay on his feet by sheer willpower. Stubbornness was his boon tonight. “That’s kind of what I do.”

“I liked you better when you had ambitions.”

“If you couldn’t take me now, you couldn’t have taken me then.”

“No,” the queen rose to her fullest height, spreading her forelimbs for battle, “the queen takes what she wants!”

Magpie was running before her long tentacle came flying in the air, striking the ground right where he used to stand. His knives went soaring in retaliation, each one of them finding husk and meat, green light flashing for every strike. He stopped abruptly and charged forward to jump, a longer knife materializing in his hand. 

His flight came to an abrupt end when a tentacle caught him by the back of his neck and pulled him away. He met the earth again in a great crash, the pain ringing up and down his spine. 

And then he was up again, the tentacle tightening around his neck. Magpie choked. 

“Trickster,” the queen hissed, watching him struggle, “see now where _your_ arrogant ambitions have led you. You say you offer me my broodlings’ deaths, so I offer yours to them. So long to a life so short!” He could practically hear the strain on her leathery rubber hide when she squeezed. His windpipe felt like it had swollen dramatically, and when he tried to cough for air, he could only imitate the noise of a dying bird. His fingers found no purchase around the thick tentacle, and when he fought to get free, he only kicked air. 

The queen lavished at his pain and fright. His neck was starting to feel weak, on fire. His eyes rolled back. Stars filled his gaze. 

And fire, striking gashes across the darkness, the stink of metal, and oil and flesh filling his nostrils. A solemn sermon played the music of his failure. 

And Thor the chorus, singing high, his roar rich with torture, as though he was being skewered alive with living fire. He shut his eyes, willing the image away, tears spilling. _All right, stop!_

He would not yield—this mad Titan who surrounded himself with suffering and those who caused it. His thick fingers held him aloft, his neck straining against his muscles. He struggled for freedom but only found air beneath his feet. 

This was how he died, he realized all of a sudden. And this was how he would die again. 

_Again._

All this fight…and then for what? One-thousand fifty-three years of scratching and biting and screaming. With nothing to show for it? Why did he accept? Why did he yield so easily? _One-thousand fifty-three years_ of resisting and surviving! How could he not have fought harder to the last of his breaths? How could he have allowed this?! Unless… 

Unless… 

Of course. Why not? 

But now times have changed, and there was no longer any need for his noble sacrifice. 

Pulling himself back from the physical, he tapped into his memories, and disappeared. 

“What?!” 

The queen’s shock was palpable even from beyond the realm. It was just too bad he wasn’t in any state to keep the magic for long. 

Or choose his landing spot. When he rematerialized, it was only a scant number of steps away from the Brood Queen who whirled in time to see him fall over to retch empty air. 

She clicked her tongue, or the equivalent of it, coming ever so slowly to him. “Why prolong the inevitable? It’s all the same! You should have sworn loyalty to me while you had the chance.”

“Heh,” Magpie laughed, leaning back on his elbows to watch the queen’s looming form, as though he was out on a picnic, stargazing. The distant crash of something very angry beat softly in the quiet night, like a rabid pulse. “Not that it means much,” he wheezed, “but I’ve already sworn my undying loyalty to someone else. And.” He smirked. 

“This one has a hulk.”

He’d barely had time to throw himself to the dirt before a rabid green rage monster in some tattered suit came bursting out of the trees, showering him in splinters and leaves while he smashed a massive fist onto the Brood Queen’s face. This was the first time he’d ever heard her scream with so much emotion but even that was silenced with another smack. 

The Hulk, the real one and not just some wannabe, was truly a frightening sight to behold that had Magpie scrambling back until the giant himself had placed some distance between them by the sheer force of his pushing and punching. The Brood Queen put up an admirable defense but for perhaps the first time in her career, she was met with someone whose fury was stronger than her ambitions. 

“ _Keep her steady, Bruce. We’re coming for you!_ ”

Magpie looked up to search the skies for the voice, and there he was, swooping down in a battered version of his red-and-gold armor but by every means still functional. Iron Man hovered in the air close to the struggle and aimed his beaming hands at the chest of the Brood Queen. She let out a cry of protest but she had locked herself with the Hulk’s stubbornness, whose thick fists was full of her tentacles. Restrained from her movements, unable to fly with his weight, she lashed out her clawed limbs and dug them deep into his sides, bringing out a roar from the gargantuan humanoid. 

And Mjolnir to her crown, smacking her with the sound of metal ringing from the impact, leaving her in a momentary daze. 

Thor filled the space between both Avengers, catching Mjolnir to spin her round again. “Banner,” he cried over the sound of Iron Man’s persistent beam, “get off her now!” 

“No!” the Hulk roared back, leaning away from the queen’s snapping jaw. “Hulk stay. Thor fight. Thunderstrike!”

“Very well,” Thor said. “As you wish.”

“ _Bruce, you’re not gonna like this!_ ” Iron Man tried again but the Hulk only roared his refusal. 

“ _Hulk stay!!_ ” 

Lightning flashed after the boom of thunder shaking the very earth, soaring down to Mjolnir held up to the skies. The weight of the power bore down on the Thunderer and he flung it to the Brood Queen with a great cry. The very air seemed to shatter upon impact. She let out a scream, matched only by the Hulk’s own bellow, trapped now by the same power. 

He was a formidable being by all means but Magpie could see where even he could lose. The Hulk was a fleshy mammal, of considerable might though he was, and the lightning would not stop until it had burned out every single fiber of his and the Brood Queen’s meat. And right now, the lightning, commanded by the god of it, was in surplus. For this all to work, there had to be a way to channel the lightning right where it hurt. 

For instance, right where Iron Man was aiming his beams of light. 

Inspiration brought Magpie up to his feet. He was still woozy from all the beating that he’d gotten but not so much that he couldn’t draw a knife out of thin air. 

He held it up to his face by its tip, taking extra care to fix his aim onto the glowing heart of the queen. 

“Checkmate,” he called it. 

He swung out his arms in a wide circle when he spun to unleash his blade. His lingering nausea caused him to overbalance and fall to the ground but the knife sailed straight. 

Struck true. 

The effect was instantaneous; lightning poured into the gash, cracking it wide open along with the force of Iron Man’s blast.

Everything resolved itself in one great explosion, painting the night in a brilliant white. Behind his arms, he cowered from the light and the wind, waiting for them to die. 

After that, there was a moment before Magpie could see through his sudden blindness, blinking several times before he realized that the night had returned and it wasn’t a problem with his vision. The earth was groaning, for some reason. 

He pulled himself up to his elbow to see the Hulk on his back, Tony Stark kneeling next to him. A set of heavier footsteps came marching to him. 

Thor was breathing heavily, face screwed by the wear of battle. His cape was tattered, and his face was covered in sweat and grime, and a bit of blood where he had been scratched. Even his mailed sleeves had sustained some damage, ripped to expose the torn flesh beneath. 

“You’re late,” Magpie exhaled to him. 

Thor gestured to him with his free hand. “Good to see you’ve still got both eyes.”

“Barely!” Magpie rolled them. He reached up to catch Thor’s hand. 

Thor pulled him up. “So,” he looked around with squinted eyes, sweeping his finger back and forth to the torn field, “this is all you?” 

“Mostly,” Magpie said, brows tight from his throbbing head. “What happened?” 

“We followed your signal,” Thor answered, looking at him, exhaling. “The one from your phone. Fought a few broodlings here and there, saved some people…everyone else is in the nest, rescuing your friends. Teddy Altman told me everything. Your fake betrayal, the surprise attack. Good planning.”

“Why do I feel like you said this to me once but not as nicely?” 

Thor smiled at him and clapped him on his shoulder. He winced. 

In time, the quinjet made its appearance, bringing with it its host of iron suits to help with the rescue effort. Bruce Banner was pulled out, and then Teddy and Billy, the magician worn out and buoyed by his boyfriend’s arms. 

He gave Magpie a weary wave when he and Thor passed them in the ship, wrapped in a singular shock blanket, the brunette sleeping on his shoulder. Wanda sat with them, herself fresh from the battle, smiling slightly at Thor’s nod. 

Both brothers found a corner for themselves to watch the ground as the ship rose, the rescued hosts now littering the park in sections, shrinking as they flew. A bigger ship would come for them soon. Magpie had stayed long enough to see some of them when they came out, but hardly anyone returned his eye contact. It was a jarring reminder of what he had done. 

He realized this was the price he had to pay for their salvation. It was just as they said: no good deed went unpunished. Who would he be, after all, if he hadn’t betrayed at least one of them for his gain? 

He pondered it, stroking the tender flesh of his throat. 

“I remembered something,” Magpie began suddenly, feeling the rawness in his voice. “About my death.”

Thor turned to him, his bare arms folded over his chest. “Which part?” he asked. 

“The part where I did it.”

“Did what?” 

“Died.” Magpie smiled. “Did you really think I would go without a plan?” 

“Well,” Thor turned to the skies, painted black with the night, “I thought it was a noble sacrifice.”

“Well, that’s one.”

“I did wonder why you couldn’t have tried to escape it with your magic.”

“Unless.”

“Unless…?” Thor turned to his brother with a little uncertainty, waiting for the continuation. 

“Unless,” Magpie went on patiently, “one were looking to escape a contract.”

Thor’s lips made a little open purse. “Ohhh,” he said. 

Magpie’s smile widened. “I thought I might kill a few birds with one stone.” Literally, it seemed, since he was supposedly killed for a stone. “Heroic sacrifice, the termination of an overdue contract. I’m sure I must have seen something else in the grander scheme of things.” He looked off in thought; or maybe that was just him flattering himself. He smiled again at his brother. “But I hope I didn’t cause too much heartache.”

“Well, no,” Thor returned to their view of the night sky. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I realize I should thank you for faking your death so many times, I’ve learned to stop crying about it.”

“Awww,” Magpie said, pushing out his lower lip to frown. “Not even one teary reunion for your favorite brother in the whole wide world?”

Thor raised him a warning finger. “Don’t push your luck, Loki. And we have nine realms.”

“But you did cry for me.”

Thor looked at him with a mixture of annoyance, weariness, and maybe just the slightest bit of bemusement. The look characteristic only of an older brother. “Of course I did,” he said. He’d thought the world of him. 

The bright room came back to him, his brother looking at him as though they’d never seen each other in years. His brother always seemed to be looking at him by his side. Even when they watched the stars, one part of his face shadowed, the eye unseen. 

Magpie looked closer at Thor suddenly, staring at his brown eye. “You got a new eye!” he realized. How could he not have noticed this before! 

“Oh yes,” Thor said, immune to his shock. He touched his new eye, having been reminded of it. “I met a sweet rabbit who happened to have it in his purse. He gave it to me free of charge. Very kind of him.”

“A…rabbit?” Magpie asked. He raised his hands to the top of his head and folded his fingers forward twice, as though he were flapping his long ears. “A legitimate rabbit?” 

Thor grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling which only seemed to make his blue one sparkle brighter. “Oh brother,” he sighed, resting his heavy hand at the back of Magpie’s neck, thumb stroking the bit of hair he could catch. Magpie smiled at the affection almost shyly. “You and I have so much to catch up on.”


	17. Chapter 17

At the end of the long day, when the night was painted in the blackest ink, the weary fighters returned to the Avengers Facility to rest, and perchance, to dream of the work that was yet to come. Magpie could barely remember dragging himself past the door of his guest room and onto the clean bed that awaited him. 

But he was up before dawn broke—curiosity was such a bitch sometimes but its pull was stronger than the comfort of sleep. If he didn’t answer its nagging voice, he knew he would ultimately regret it. There would be no slumber waiting for him, no peace of any kind, and maybe no better time than then. 

He was dressed, this time, in a light gray Avengers shirt with matching black Stark Tech trainers (he really ought to just complete his collection of these promotional merchandise) when he crept out of his window. His concern with Tony Stark’s security system was still ever-present but he was willing to risk it this one time when he crossed the wall onto the next door window. 

And he did so very shamelessly, knocking on the glass and waiting for the startled couple to rescue him before he fell off the nigh-non-existent ledge because of his stupidity and blind bravery. And he had the gall to smile and wave while he was at it! 

“Are you crazy?!” Teddy snarled when he finally pushed the window open. He’d hastily put a bathrobe on to cover his toplessness. 

“Considering all the things I’ve done in this lifetime and the last? Possibly,” Magpie said, swinging in to sit on the edge, feet dangling some inches off the floor. He smiled and twiddled his fingers at the bleary Wiccan, rubbing his eye. “Feeling better, Billy?” 

“That depends,” he muttered, voice slurry with sleep. “What’re you doing here, Magpie?” 

“I’m here to tell you that you can stop calling me that now.” The delight was almost too much for him to contain when Billy and Teddy froze at his words. “And I’m here to ask some questions of my own.”

That was the time he gave them to come into terms with his visit. They turned to each other, one in bed and one on his feet. 

He crossed his arms, getting comfortable for his interrogation. “Who told you?” he asked. 

“Wanda,” Billy answered, facing him. Teddy moved back to his side to take his hand. “She dropped by the farm and told us. How did you find out?” 

Magpie smiled. “You never questioned me,” he said. “When a man proclaims that he is a god, he expects either of three things,” he raised his fist, starting the count with his thumb, “he is ridiculed, he is ignored, or someone actually believes him.” He paused, letting his explanation sink in. “Well, you certainly didn’t laugh at me,” he went on, tucking his third finger in, “and you’re still talking to me.” He folded the second finger. 

Which left only his thumb free, which he showed to Billy and Teddy to prove his point, brows high. Neither Billy nor Teddy offered a protest or a defense. 

He put down his hands to each his side on the window frame, leaning slightly towards the young couple. “What I must admire, though, is that you never once tried to avoid me. I think you’d even done quite the opposite.” His eyes focused on Billy. 

Billy glanced at Teddy again, meeting his eye before he returned to Magpie. “That was my mission,” he explained, drawing the god’s brows together in intrigue. “You were my mission.”

“You would befriend me and then kill me in my sleep.”

“No, just to keep an eye on you,” Billy revealed. “Wanda sent me to Manhattan after what you did with Oscar. The way she phrased it, though, I thought you just needed a friend. But what I never realized, until you’d been about to kill Jake, was that they gave me this assignment…because of my powers.”

“Who’s they?” 

“The Avengers,” Billy said. He lifted a brow. “Though I think it was mostly just Mr. Stark, Captain Rogers and Wanda.”

“Your magic,” Magpie pointed to him, “against my raw talent.” Finger to himself. He mused, painting the scenario in his head, looking up. “I agree, that would have been a difficult fight to win. Now I see why Wanda thinks you’re the best man for the job.”

He turned to Teddy with his own raised brow and pointed to him. “And you knew all this?” 

“Just the friend part,” Teddy said. “But I never learned it was you until we met in the safehouse. And then I find out who you _really_ are.”

“That must have been quite a shock.”

“Well,” Teddy eased himself to the headboard, “I always knew that Earth was a strange place.”

Magpie’s eyes flashed, the sound of Spot Conlon’s voice echoing in his head, reminding him that Teddy was ‘not from around here’. 

“You are not of Earth!” he gasped, gaping at the surprise alien. 

“Well,” he began again, accepting his human boyfriend’s comforting touch. Human? It was just as he said—Earth was a strange place. “I’m still trying to find out about that part in myself.”

Magpie’s features softened, and he smiled. “I know the feeling,” he shared.

* * *

The road to recovery was a long one, and it began with everyone being tested for the infection. 

What exactly it would achieve was still largely a question but it was definitely better than just sitting on their hands and doing nothing. The effort to rebuild broken mansions and breached safehouses could only take so many, and everything else such as containment, press releases and cleaning operations, search and rescue required a particular set of skills, and a license for occupational hazards, of course. 

Of Jake, there was still no news. The last one was that Stark was still trying to save him—the human side of him. Once, he had led the operation to clean a body of the extremis virus. Now, he wanted to do the same. 

But as for the rest, the ones who received the infection but could no longer be found to be cured, the least they could do for them was a memorial. 

Every chapter of the orphan network had come together that day to celebrate the memories of the friends they once had. But come nightfall, they would each go back to their respective mansions to host their own remembrance for their own brothers and sisters. 

Racetrack skipped over the last few steps in his haste to meet the surprise visitor inspecting his black-painted nails, leaning back to the balustrade of the second floor. “Magpie!” he called him. 

He turned to look at the young man and offered him a kind smile. “After what I put you through, you still came up here to meet me.”

Racetrack scratched the back of his head, approaching him. “You know, I still don’t understand what happened. And I still have no idea what you were talking about,” Magpie laughed, “but…I know that…no matter what you did, you still saved us.” He shrugged. 

“I don’t think the others think so generously of me as you do.”

“Have you spoken with them?”

“No,” Magpie said, slipping his hands in his coat pockets. “Just you. And Spot.” He’d dropped by Brooklyn before this meeting, catching the captain at a private corner, just for closure as he had called it. In the end, they shook hands and parted…less as friends and more as acquaintances. “Before I go, I figured I ought to call in on Kelly and Jacobs, too, and Katherine most especially. Just for a few final words.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” 

The innocent shock caused him to laugh a little, beaming brightly. It was…not entirely naive but it was almost as sweet as one. “Look at you, Racetrack,” he said. “Still thinking we could go back to the way things were. But we can’t.” His smile softened. “I no longer belong with you, and your friends will not have me.”

“Is that why you weren’t in the memorial earlier?” 

“Of course, I was,” he said softly. “Once, they were also my brothers and sisters. It’s an unfortunate thing to happen,” he sighed, looking down to the lobby where he saw a familiar couple walking to the door, hands held between them. 

Billy and Teddy looked up. He waved to them and they waved back. 

“But that’s the risk you take for being alive,” he added, watching the Brooklynites leave. 

“Yeah,” Racetrack mumbled, putting his hip to the barrier. “I guess…” But it was clear in his weariness that he didn’t believe in what he said. 

For a moment, there was silence between them, and the house spoke only of hollow echoes and shutting doors. 

“So,” Racetrack continued, “what’s up with the uhh…”

Magpie turned to him to see him pointing to his headpiece. “Ah,” he chuckled quietly. “That is what you call staying on brand.”

“Golden horns?” 

“I’m finding out more and more about myself every day,” he continued, moving his elbows to the top of the balustrade. He shook his hair free of his furry collar, some locks hanging stubbornly off his headband. “It’s easier now that I’ve opened the first door. There’ll be a lot to unpack—1,053 years of me, they said—but I’ll get there in the end.”

“So…what you said in the park that night…” Racetrack ventured carefully, his gaze matching his tone. “Was that all…true?”

Magpie smiled. “Yes,” he said. “I did not tell a lie.”

“So…what are you? Really?”

“What am I?” he laughed, turning to face the lobby, the heels of his palms on the barrier. “That’s a loaded question for a shapeshifter, isn’t it? When you see water in a vase, do you ask it what it is? No,” he answered for the poor confused human, looking at him, “because you see it as water, in its purest form. No matter what mold you put it in, it will always be water. I am similar.” A parallel as good as any he could come up with. 

But Racetrack only curled his brows. 

So he said to him, with the clearest voice, “I am me,” as he tilted his chin up slightly. “First, last and always. I am the echo of a scream,” he shifted, “I am the magpie who whispers, ” and stood facing his audience. “I am the royal prince of Asgard, the rightful king of Jotunheim. I am the God of Mischief.” And he smiled, for the last name to fill the silence:

“I am Loki.”


End file.
